Word: walt
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Main Street U.S.A at the new Hong Kong Disneyland looks exactly like the one most Americans remember from their childhood, but it won't taste the same. The classic Disney thoroughfare of quaint buildings and gas streetlights has been lovingly re-created from the original theme park Walt Disney built in Anaheim, Calif., which opened 50 years ago this week. But Walt's vision of idyllic small-town America now has a surprisingly un-Midwestern twist. Inside one Victorian building is Main Street's first Chinese restaurant, the Plaza Inn, crafted as a stylish tea shop from early 20th century...
Hong Kong Disneyland is taking the Walt Disney Co. to a new place: the wonderful world of China. The $3.6 billion park, scheduled to open Sept. 12, is Disney's boldest attempt to make Mickey Mouse as well known as Chairman Mao in the burgeoning Chinese market. With 1.3 billion increasingly wealthy people--290 million of them under 14, Disney's prime audience--China is the Magic Kingdom for a consumer company, and Disney wants to sell them everything from Mickey Mouse toys to animated movies to kids' magazines. "We know we have an addressable market just crying...
...crucial. Executives hope the park will pave the way for the company's DVDs, TV shows, toys and other businesses to thrive in China by acting as a huge roller-coaster-filled advertisement for the Disney brand. "At the highest level, Hong Kong Disneyland is a beachhead for the Walt Disney Co. in China," says Jay Rasulo, president of Disney's theme parks and resorts...
Still, most of the park looks as if it were airlifted from the U.S. Imagineers used Walt Disney's original designs for the first Disneyland in Anaheim as a starting point. Many Disney classics are there, including a fairy-tale Sleeping Beauty Castle and a Space Mountain roller coaster. Will this slice of Americana appeal to the Chinese? Disney executives think so. The Chinese "have heard so much about the parks around the world, and they want to experience the same thing," says Don Robinson, managing director of Hong Kong Disneyland. Disney may be catching China at just the right...
...bunches of flowers laid in remembrance of the victims. "The people who did this," it read, "should know that they have failed. They picked the wrong city to pick on." --Reported by Theunis Bates, Maryann Bird, Jessica Carsen, Andrea Gerlin, Helen Gibson, Lillian Kennett, Adam Smith and Vivienne Walt/ London, Timothy J. Burger and Douglas Waller/ Washington, Bruce Crumley/Paris, Ghulam Hasnain/Karachi, Jeff Israely/Rome and J.F.O. McAllister/Gleneagles