The opening comes after tragedy struck Disney’s resort in the U.S. state of Florida, where an alligator killed a two-year-old child at the shore of a lake in the massive complex.
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Disney sees the resort as an opportunity to capitalise on China’s middle class and to capture a slice of the country’s $610 billion tourism industry.
Mr Iger and his public affairs teams, working almost around the clock from Shanghai in recent days, also had to contend with the mass shooting on Sunday in Orlando, which is in many ways a Disney company town. Disney says the Wandering Moon Teahouse, modeled on a building in eastern China, is the only Chinese-style structure in any of its parks. “When we open we will continue the construction to expand what’s on the opening day menu”, said Iger, who first scoped out the seven square kilometre plot in 1999.
The resort is Disney’s sixth, and fourth overseas.
The Shanghai park is made up of six-themed zones, plus two hotels and a shopping area. By contrast, Walt Disney World drew 19.3 million people in 2014.
Disney has many inexperienced but ambitious competitors in China.
Wang said the park was an example of US-Sino “practical cooperation” and “people to people exchanges”.
The opening ceremony of “authentically Disney, distinctly Chinese” park held in the rain and following much anticipation. But Chinese visitors might be less familiar with Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck’s uncle, and Tiana from the “The Princess and the Frog” both making appearances in the park.
It is also means creating new attractions so that Shanghai’s communist government, which has a stake in the park, feels it has something unique.
Thousands waited in long lines in the rain-drenched park, hoping to be among the first to ride attractions such as a futuristic rollercoaster based on the “Tron” science fiction films. But still, he said, Shanghai Disneyland “is far above anything else in China”. Consumers also have an ambivalent attitude to its products, with some being sceptical about American values overriding Chinese traditions and culture.
Amid fireworks and a Mickey Mouse parade, not everything has gone as planned. Overall, 70% of the food offered is Chinese, 20% is other Asian cuisines, and only 10% is Western-influence.
Disney estimates that 300 million people are living within a three hour commute to the park. That’s 330 million people who it deems can afford the entrance fee, which varies from $56 at off peak times to $76 at the weekends.
Iger pointed out that the new park has enormous economic potential, after it welcomed more than 600,000 visitors during a month’s trial period ahead of Thursday’s grand opening.
Shanghai Disneyland’s castle is the largest Disney has ever built, dwarfing California’s Sleeping Beauty Castle by a lot.
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Jin Yasi, a 33-year-old housewife from Wuhan, came with her husband and their two daughters, aged 6 and 3, dressed as Elsa from “Frozen” and as Snow White. DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc’s $2.4 billion DreamCenter is scheduled for 2017 while Haichang Ocean Park Holdings plans a marine park an hour from Disneyland and Six Flags Entertainment Corp.’s Shanghai park will be its first outside North America.
