Hot on the heals of the Korean Disney park ‘announcement’ comes a bit of speculative news from Shanghai. The article states "the sources said the park will be four times bigger than Hong Kong’s Disneyland," which sounds like someone’s wet dreams to me.
Disney Corporate claims to have very valid business reasons for building these mini-parks like California Adventure, Disney Studios Paris, and Hong Kong Disneyland. They may not be home runs, but their solid base hits for the company and with a little tweaking and some strong follow up batting (An e-ticket or two over the next 5 years) those runs will be driven in. I think it will be a long time before we see Disney swing for the fences with a mega themepark on the scale of Tokyo or Orlando’s Magic Kingdom and Epcot.
Even the original park didn’t become a 50 attraction mega-park in its first few years. It grew, contracted, and grew again until its present form was reached.
Still under speculation? Glad to see this project is in the works, perhaps. Could be a big factor in the leverage of future projects for Disney in Asia. The tax rate will be a big factor along with the increase in GDP over the next 5 or so years. An increase in foreign investment will likely effect the pay scale for cast members if such a park were to be built. I suspect the current trend of tax breaks in China will minimize the impact to Disney’s initial investment. Additionally, the success of home distribution and Disney’s new family wireless venture slated for the US could easily be adapted to fit the savvy and competent Chinese of Shanghai and metro areas. The business opportunity Disney is greater than both China or Disney’s investment in property, because herein a strong knowledge of Disney paired with brand presence in the form of a theme parks, resort, etc, will be a pricless addition to the value and longevity of the Disney name throughout Asia.
However, this could become a heavily debated political issue, pending any nuclear proliferation in East Asia. I think if Disney is going to do this, the sooner the better.
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