Disney thinking Chinese in bid to put the magic back in its kingdom
Shanghai businessman Yu Jian didn’t include Hong Kong Disneyland on his vacation itinerary until his nine-year-old son wore him down with pleas to meet Donald Duck.
“Friends who visited the park said it was very small and too Westernized for us to enjoy,” Yu said as son Qitong bit the ear off an ice-cream bar shaped like the head of Mickey Mouse.
Those perceptions helped fuel a 23-percent drop in attendance during the park’s second year and led one local politician to advocate cutting public financing. The Hong Kong government is the majority owner.
Now Walt Disney is trying to make the site more Chinese. During the Lunar New Year celebrations in February, Mickey donned a Mao jacket and Minnie Mouse wore a cherry blossom-red silk dress by designer Vivienne Tam. Chinese music extolled the beauty of spring, and scrolls bearing good-luck messages lined the walkways.
“It should feel this way,” Managing Director Bill Ernest said. “This is a theme park based in the United States, but we are in Hong Kong.”
Disney is striving to prevent the park from turning into a pumpkin after attendance dropped to four million in the year ended on September 29 from 5.2 million the previous year.
Attendance at Disney resorts worldwide rose six percent during the period. The parks accounted for US$1.7 billion, or 22 percent, of Disney’s operating income in 2007, Bloomberg News said.
“The theme park is important in helping position Disney for longer-term growth in China in terms of merchandise sales and films,” said Michael Kupinski, an analyst at the Noble Financial Group in Florida.
The Hong Kong government owns 57 percent of the park after investing HK$3.25 billion (US$417 million). Local authorities also spent HK$13.6 billion on infrastructure including roads and a light-rail extension. The government initially projected attendance of five to 10 million a year.
In a report to Hong Kong’s Legislative Council in December, the city’s Tourism Commission said the government wasn’t satisfied with the park’s performance.
Disney has waived its management fees to the end of September 2009 and pushed back repayment of some of the park’s HK$8.4 billion debt. Company officials declined to provide details. On January 21, Ernest said Disney might increase its 43-percent stake.
The California-based company has been here before. Euro Disney, which runs Disneyland Resort Paris, posted its first profit three years after the park opened in 1992.
“If you look at the history of Disney’s international expansion, it took some time for them to get other parks running as well,” Kupinski said.
Disney’s biggest obstacle may be that it has little connection to older people in China, said Michael Wu, head of the Hong Kong Association of Travel Agents. Chinese account for 70 percent of attendance, the government estimates.
“Disney’s always talking about the culture of America,” Wu said. “When you come to Hong Kong to build a business you must know the culture of the Chinese people.”
Adults weren’t inundated with Disney fare growing up in China, instead they idolized characters in Chinese novels such as “The Water Margin.” The company didn’t sign a major TV deal in China until 1986, when the “Mickey and Donald” cartoon show debuted on CCTV.
Recent efforts to target China include the 1998 animated film “Mulan,” based on an ancient Chinese folk tale and the Disney Channel now broadcasts in Chinese and English. At the park, Disney is promoting the Chinese Year of the Mouse and restaurants offer local dishes such as fried turnip cake and coconut red-bean pudding.
“This feels like a real Spring Festival celebration,” Yu, 55, said as vendors pushed carts offering cotton candy and caramel popcorn. “I know Disney is American, but as the Chinese saying goes, ‘He who enters a village should follow its customs.’”
Miqi Mouse
There have been discussions about celebrating more Chinese holidays, including the Mid-Autumn Festival in September, a spokesman said. The park has already added shows featuring Cantonese singers and put Chinese books in “Mickey’s House.”
Iconic Disney characters use Chinese names such as “Shui Gongzhu,” or “Sleeping Princess,” and Baixue Gongzhu, or “White-Snow Princess.” Mickey is known as “Miqi” in Chinese.
Disney has also asked the government to help finance an expansion of the park, which can be covered in a few hours and is perceived as overpriced at HK$350 for adults.
Hong Kong Disneyland has 35 attractions, compared to 60 at the Magic Kingdom in Florida.
Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng told reporters during the National People’s Congress in Beijing on Thursday that Shanghai had applied to the central government to build a Disneyland - which could be a third one in Asia after Tokyo and Hong Kong - and the best location would be Pudong New Area.
Hong Kong’s results for the three months to the end of December were promising, Disney said last month. Chief Financial Officer Thomas Staggs said visitor numbers rose by “double digits” from a year earlier as the park celebrated Chinese and Western holidays. Attendance may have faltered during the Spring Festival because of the snowstorms.
Still, Yu Qitong was a satisfied customer.
His favorite ride was the Space Mountain roller coaster. “I want to come back every year,” he said.
Tags: CCTV, TV