When the Walt Disney Company set out to build a theme park in Hong Kong there were a lot of questions. Would the Chinese take to the American style theme park? Would the Disney characters resonate with a population that had previously had little exposure to them? Just who was the audience for the park?

Fortune Magazine looks at some of the lessons Disney can take away from their experience in Hong Kong that might serve them well in future expansion into Asia markets.

[Disney] failed to gauge local tastes, opened with a park that was too small to meet the grandiose expectations of its clientele, made some public relations mistakes early on, and took too long to adapt to local food, culture, and tastes, according to Allan Zeman, the chairman of the rival Ocean Park theme park in Hong Kong.

“Disney, on the other hand, came in very American,” Zeman says. “Disney was a big brand, not really understanding the culture at the beginning. They had everything run out of the U.S. At the beginning there was a sense of arrogance: ‘We’re Disney, and don’t tell us how to run a theme park.’”

Hong Kong Disneyland also earned the wrath of the Hong Kong press corps by taking a long time to respond to queries with answers that had to be approved through U.S. headquarters

In hindsight it’s obvious Disney didn’t know what they were getting into when they built Hong Kong Disneyland. Let’s hope they’ve done their homework for Shanghai?

If you’re heading out to Disneyland or Walt Disney World this fall, make sure you mosey on down to the Rivers of America and catch “Tiana’s Showboat Jubilee.” Princess Tiana, Prince Naveen, Louis, and the evil Dr. Facilier are all featured with their own songs from the movie and it’s sure to get you excited about seeing The Princess and the Frog in the theaters.

I’ve put together a few clips from the show to give you an idea on what to expect.

The show is currently scheduled to run through January 3rd, 2010 as a tie-in to the movie’s launch on December 11th.

It’s difficult for me to think of a theme park company that goes farther than the Walt Disney Company to accommodate guests with disabilities. That said, there is always room for improvement. Disneyland has now added ‘Audio Description’ to many of its attractions, a service Walt Disney World has been offering for a bit more than a year now.

Disneyland Resort Guests with visual disabilities can now be more fully immersed into Disney attractions and storytelling through a new Audio Description service created by Disney engineers. The service, which launched Nov. 1, is enabled through wireless technology via a handheld device available to Guests visiting the Resort.

“The Disneyland Resort welcomes millions of diverse visitors each year, and we are committed to making the Disney tradition of rich storytelling available to everyone,” said Betty Appleton, who oversees the Resort’s Guests with Disabilities program. “Audio Description supports our longstanding commitment to providing outstanding services to all Guests as it enables our visitors who are blind or have low vision to more fully enjoy our attractions.”

Audio Description provides narrated audio for Guests with visual disabilities by describing visual attraction elements such as actions, settings and scene changes. It works seamlessly with existing show audio, enhancing each attraction with rich detail and immediately involving Guests into the experience. This service is available at nearly 20 attractions at Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure, including favorites such as Pirates of the Caribbean, It’s Tough to be a Bug and Haunted Mansion.

A Guest experiencing Haunted Mansion would hear the following after boarding a ride vehicle: “Our doom buggy rotates and we face backward. To our left, a knight’s armor guards an endless hallway. On our right, wilted flower arrangements surround a coffin. An eerie light escapes as bony hands push up the lid.”

CastABLE and Diversity Resource Groups

As part of the testing process, Audio Description service was evaluated by members of CastABLE, a Diversity Resource Group (DRG) composed of Resort Cast Members with disabilities.

“Experiencing the Audio Description service almost brought me to tears,” said Brenda Woodrum, a reservation sales agent at the Walt Disney Travel Company in Anaheim and CastABLE member who has been visually impaired since 1996. “For me it was an emotional experience, especially when I got onto Pirates of the Caribbean. It brought back memories of all the rich detail that I could see when I was younger. There was so much magic that I was missing, but this new technology it brings it all to you.”

As part of its ongoing commitment to fostering an inclusive work environment, the Disneyland Resort supports six DRGs, which have combined memberships of approximately 1,500 Cast Members. The DRGs exist to make Cast feel welcomed, appreciated and valued while providing enrichment, awareness and education. DRGs also serve as thought partners, providing valuable feedback and insight to business leaders on products and services currently in development.

Services For Guests with Hearing Disabilities

Audio Description joins two existing services available on Disney’s Handheld Device, a palm-sized wireless device originally developed in 2002 by Disney engineers. In addition to Audio Description, the device offers services to Guests with hearing disabilities, including Assistive Listening, which was added in August and provides amplified audio at several attractions, and Handheld Captioning, which displays text in specific attractions and areas.

Disney’s Handheld Device is available at no cost for daily Guest use by visiting Guest Relations at Disneyland or Disney’s California Adventure on a first-come, first-served basis. A fully refundable deposit is required.

Available Attractions

The following attractions offer Audio Description: Enchanted Tiki Room, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, ‘it’s a small world’, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Peter Pan’s Flight, Pinocchio’s Daring Journey, Snow White’s Scary Adventures, Storybook Land Canal Boats, Disneyland Railroad, Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience”, It’s Tough to be a Bug!, Turtle Talk with Crush, Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! and Muppet*Vision 3D.

Alan Joyce, the author of Secrets of the Mouse, has just released a reference guide for Disneyland’s Hidden Mickeys – The Hidden Mouse. The mouse’s hiding places are revealed in 116 information rich full-color pages featuring hundreds of photographs, helpful tips, and bonus behind-the-scenes information about dozens of rides.

The guidebook includes:

• A comprehensive of list currently known Hidden Mickeys in Disneyland, Disney’s California Adventure, Disneyland Resort Hotels, and more.
• High-quality color photos of many Hidden Mickeys.
• Helpful tips for locating each Hidden Mickey.
• Behind-the-scenes information and fun facts about dozens of attractions across the Resort.

What sets this guide to Hidden Mickeys apart is the marvelous full color presentation. Many of the Hidden Mickeys have photos right in the book, so they’re easy to find when you arrive at the right spot. The other major Hidden Mickey guide makes finding the elusive marks more of a treasure hunt.

One of the strengths of the book is how easy the structure makes it to reference any ride or location across the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim. The Hidden Mouse will guide you to the nearest Hidden Mickey at the Disneyland Resort Hotels, California Adventure, and Disneyland itself. Using it will add an extra layer of fun to your theme park experience. I found a few Hidden Mickeys in the guide that I had no idea even existed.

My biggest fault with Joyce’s book is that he uses a very broad definition of what constitutes a Hidden Mickey, particularly when it comes to the three circle variety. In my opinion, if the proportions aren’t correct or the ‘ears’ are not correctly aligned it’s not a Hidden Mickey. But go find them yourself and make up your own mind.

For that extra layer of fun, or just something to do while waiting in queue, bring The Hidden Mouse with you on your next trip to Walt’s original Magic Kingdom – Disneyland.

• What a crazy weekend at Disneyland. Guests were being parked at all corners of the resort district leading some to just give up and head home. The crowds aren’t going to get any lighter as the resort’s popular Halloween promotion enters it’s busiest weeks. On the plus side there were multiple sightings of new president George Kalogridis walking the parks.
• George wasn’t the only one walking around the resort, thousands of CHOC walkers raised $1.5 million for the charity.
• Two of Disney’s Imagineers won’t be around to see what Kalogridis does with Disneyland. Tim Delaney, executive vice president, and Valerie Edwards, WDI’s head sculptor, were both let go.
• The LA Times reports on a talk by Disney CEO Bob Iger about how a modern movie studio must be run.
• The Orlando Sentinel reports that Universal Orlando is experiencing weakening attendance, although it is still quite profitable. The buzz is also rising about a possible sale of the resort or even the whole company.

Via the Disney Parks Blog we have a short video interview with new Disneyland President George Kalogridis:

Sounds like a real Disney fan to me.

(via Disney Parks)

DLRP Today, one of the best websites tracking what’s going on at Disneyland Paris, has a post up today with the dirt on George Kalogridis, the newly appointed President of the original Disneyland. While the report is not all sunshine and roses, it certainly appears like they’ve found the right person for the job.

So what did Kalogridis do during his three years as COO of Disneyland Paris?

In that time, we’ve seen new parades, new shows and no less than six new attractions — including of course, the formidable Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. We’ve also enjoyed a renewed focus on the resort’s upkeep and details, increasingly wonderful Cast Members, new initiatives like Extra Magic Hours and E-Tickets, and in pure number terms, the most successful years of the resort’s life to date.

Meanwhile, characters have taken over some of the magic of the original park, proper entertainment has been shunned in favour of street dance-alongs, attractions have been forced into reduced operating hours, hotel pools have stayed closed until 3pm, the official website has remained incredibly poor, and progress, generally, at Walt Disney Studios Park has been disappointingly slow and half-hearted. And of course, during his entire run as COO, George Kalogridis would never have seen the front of Disney Studio 1 — it being flanked first by Chicken Little and Cars advertisements, then later a “refurbishment” covering for the past 14 months.

Kalogridis now returns to Anaheim where he helped open California Adventure and battled Cynthia Harriss over the direction the park should take. Now he gets that chance to make sure the whole resort is on the right path. Good luck with that George.

For a bit more insight into how Kalogridis might handle the presidency, check out this new interview the OC Register.

What I’m hearing from Disneyland Cast Members and Guests is that they want someone who can make the park the place to be again. Having Disneyland on your resume used to mean something. It might take a few years, but it can happen again.

Congrats to George Kalogridis, the new President of the Disneyland Resort. We heard last week that he was the lead candidate, now it’s his chance to go out and put a shine on the crown jewel of Walt Disney’s theme parks.

Word went out this morning in an official email from Al Weiss to all Walt Disney Parks & Resorts employees.

I am pleased to announce that George Kalogridis has been promoted to President, Disneyland Resort, reporting to me. He will begin his new role effective immediately.

George has more than 38 years of Disney leadership and operational expertise. During his tenure with Disney, George held numerous executive positions throughout Parks and Resorts. For the past three years, he served as the Chief Operating Officer for Disneyland Paris, where he was responsible for leading the operations team and executing the highly successful 15th anniversary celebration.

Prior to that, as Vice President, Travel Operations, Walt Disney World, he developed and implemented strategies that drove four years of increased business results, which included the implementation of the new Magic Your Way booking process. From 2000 – 2002, during a period of significant growth at the Disneyland Resort with the opening of Disney’s California Adventure and Downtown Disney, George led the Disneyland Resort operations team as Senior Vice President, Resort Operations. As Vice President, EPCOT, during the Millennium Celebration, George negotiated numerous sponsorships for the celebration and brought in 24 country commitments to participate in the one-year event. In addition to his park operations and sales experience, George was General Manager, Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, Vice President, Walt Disney World, Human Resources and one of the original Cast Members on the Disneyland Paris development team in 1988. George began his career as a busboy at the opening of the Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World.

In his new role, George’s primary focus will be to drive and deliver an outstanding Guest experience, support and develop our Cast, and continue to build external relationships in the community. Reporting to George will be:

* Jon Storbeck, Vice President, Disneyland Park
* Mary Niven, Vice President, Disney’s California Adventure Park and Guest Services
* Tony Bruno, Vice President, Resorts and Downtown Disney
* Jason Kirk, Director, Operations Support

I am pleased that the strong bench strength within our organization has allowed us to make a seamless transition in filling this senior leadership position. George’s operational expertise and strong leadership skills will serve him well in leading the Disneyland Resort during this time of major growth with the continued expansion of Disney’s California Adventure. Like the Disneyland Resort leadership team, George shares the same pride and commitment to ensuring the success of the Resort and continuing the 54-year legacy of creating magical moments and delivering exceptional Guest service.

George and his partner will be relocating to Southern California in the next few weeks.

Please join me in congratulating George on his new role and welcoming him back to the Disneyland Resort.

Here’s to you George. Let’s create our own little knock-down list for George to check out as he arrives back in Anaheim. Where should he put his focus first?