Shanghai: Walt Disney Company opened Shanghai Disneyland, its first theme park in mainland China, with a lavish celebration yesterday featuring Communist Party leaders, a children’s choir, Sleeping Beauty and other Disney characters.
A vice premier joined Disney chief executive Bob Iger in cutting the grand opening’s red ribbon, showing the ruling party’s support for the $5.5 billion investment in promoting tourism at a time of slowing economic growth. They read letters of congratulations from the Chinese and American presidents, Xi Jinping and Barack Obama.
“This is one of the proudest and most exciting moments in the history of the Walt Disney,” Iger said after the choir sang. Later, actors dressed as Sleeping Beauty, Donald Duck and other Disney characters danced on stage.
The company hopes Shanghai Disneyland will burnish the brand behind Frozen in the world’s most populous film market and help revive Disney’s struggling international theme park business.
Analysts expect Shanghai Disneyland to become the world’s most-visited theme park, attracting at least 15 million and as many as 50m guests a year. By contrast, Walt Disney World drew 19.3m people in 2014.
Speaking as a light rain fell, vice premier Wang Yang quipped, “I would like to call this a rain of US dollars or of renminbi.” Wang, a member of the ruling party’s Politiburo, described the park as an example of Sino-US “practical co-operation” and “people to people exchanges.”
Despite slower growth, China’s economy still is one of the world’s best-performing and tourism spending is rising.
Shanghai represents a market of 300m people living within three hours of the park by car or train in one of China’s most affluent regions. China’s bullet train network can draw in areas further afield.
YouGov, a market research firm, said 44 per cent of people it surveyed in China in May said they plan to visit Shanghai Disneyland within a year. It said 80pc plan to take family members.
Disney’s opening follows a decade of negotiations, five years of construction and weeks of testing. Iger said more than 1m visitors already have tried out its rides, shops, restaurants and two hotels.
The company added China-themed elements and put the emphasis on popular characters at the Shanghai park, while downplaying its American identity. At the entrance, instead of “Main Street USA,” it’s “Mickey Avenue.” Near its iconic Storybook Castle, Disney created a “Garden of the Twelve Friends” using characters such as Remy from Ratatouille and Tigger from Winnie the Pooh as animals of the Chinese Zodiac.
The park should generate some $1.5bn to $4.5bn a year in revenue, according to Drexel Hamilton analyst Tony Wible.
However, Disney’s state-owned Chinese partner, the Shanghai Shendi, which owns 57pc of the 7.5sqkm park, will get the lion’s share.