The on again off again expansion to Hong Kong Disneyland is now on and on for good. The Hong Kong Government has approved the deal that will have Disney spending almost $500 million to add three mini lands to the Magic Kingdom style theme park.
Financial Secretary John Tsang said the park already “has brought substantial economic benefits to Hong Kong.”
With its new features, the park “will rise up to the keen competition in the region on the tourism front, attracting more family visitors from around the world,” Tsang said.
That’s a very different goal than The Walt Disney Company originally set out to meet with HKDL. Disney was just looking for a foothold in the Asia market. They didn’t expect the park to need enough attractions to have an international draw, not did they layer in enough story telling that the locals could appreciate (not having been exposed to Disney’s western based stories yet).
These issues were all discussed but then discarded by Disney higherups in the initial HKDL planning stages. Hopefully having to correct mistakes with large outputs of cash (see also California Adventure) will put an end to the idea that you can build a small park and hope people will come.