Hong Kong Disneyland Expansion
It has been a rocky roller coaster ride for the 5th Disneyland park located in Hong Kong. Since opening May 22, 2005 it has brought joy to many Disney fans, but also had to fight against criticism, bad results and an uncertain future. From overcrowded days in a park that was to small, up to an empty park on other days, missing the 5.6 million visitors first year target by 400.000. Visitor numbers fell with 20% in the second year and only gained 8% in year three.
New attractions and experiences like High School Musical: LIVE!, the Muppet Mobile Lab, Turtle Talk with Crush and the classical attraction “it’s a small world” have been added during the first four year but Hong Kong Disneyland is now ready for another big expansion to make sure guest will return again and again.
The Hong Kong government and Disney have reach a deal to expand the Disneyland park. The full deal is said to be worth HK$7 Billion ($903.3 million) of which HK$4 billion will be used to expand the Disneyland park. It is expected that the agreement will be officially announced on June 30?
The expansion is needed to make sure the Hong Kong park will be able to compete against the Shanghai park that could draw a lot of the mainland guests.
“At this stage, we have to support the expansion otherwise it will be very difficult to compete with Shanghai in five to six years time,” said legislator Fred Li of the Democratic Party, who said his party backed the expansion as long as Disney boosted its financial transparency in future on attendance figures. (Reuters)
June 30th, 2009 at 11:04 am
[...] even a week ago it was revealed that Hong Kong Disneyland would receive a major expansion. Today (June 30) Mrs. Rita Lau, the [...]