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WALT DISNEY CO. opened its Shanghai theme park Thursday, its first in mainland China, with speeches by Communist Party leaders, a Chinese children’s choir, Sleeping Beauty and other Disney characters.
A Chinese vice premier joined Disney CEO Bob Iger in cutting a red ribbon as the park opened, signalling the ruling party’s endorsement of the $5.5 billion (€4.9 billion) investment in promoting tourism and other service industries at a time of slowing economic growth.
They read out letters of congratulations from the Chinese and American presidents, Xi Jinping and Barack Obama.
Shanghai Disneyland gives the Hollywood giant a chance to burnish the brand behind “Frozen” in the world’s most populous film market and to revive its struggling international theme park business.
“This is one of the proudest and most exciting moments in the history of the Walt Disney Co.,” said Iger, speaking after the kids choir sang When You Wish Upon a Star.
Later, actors dressed as Sleeping Beauty, Donald Duck and other Disney characters danced on stage.
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”, the Chinese currency.
Wang, a member of the party’s powerful Politiburo, described the park as an example of Sino-US “practical cooperation” and “people to people exchanges.”
The festive sentiment was tempered by grim news from Florida that an alligator killed a 2-year-old boy at Disney’s flagship Walt Disney World.
The boy drowned after the animal dragged him into the water at a lagoon in the park on Tuesday.
The park’s opening follows a decade of negotiations, five years of construction and weeks of having over 1 million visitors try out its rides, shops, restaurants and two hotels.
Distinctly Chinese
Global brands like Disney are rushing to create products for Chinese tastes. 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.”
Ahead of the opening, Iger said the park was “authentically Disney and distinctly Chinese.”
In a garden leading to 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.
Disney says the park’s Wandering Moon Teahouse, modeled on a building in eastern China, is the only Chinese-style structure in any of its parks.
Analysts expect Shanghai Disneyland to become the world’s most-visited theme park, attracting at least 15 million and as many as 50 million guests a year. By contrast, Walt Disney World drew 19.3 million people in 2014.
“It’s going to be a huge success,” said Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research in Shanghai.
Everybody in China who has a kid or a grandkid is going to want to go to Shanghai Disney.
Despite a sharp slowdown in growth, China’s economy still is one of the world’s best-performing and tourism spending is rising.
“Even with the weak economy, Chinese are not cutting back on tourism,” said Rein.
They are still spending on experiences and on their kids.
Wanda Group
Shanghai represents a market of 300 million 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.
The park should generate some $1.5 billion to $4.5 billion (€4 billion) a year in revenue, according to Drexel Hamilton analyst Tony Wible.
Disney’s state-owned Chinese partner, the Shanghai Shendi (Group) Co Ltd, which owns 57 % of the 7.5-square-kilometer (2.9-square-mile) park, will get the lion’s share.
Disney’s international parks in Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo haven’t made a profit in six of the past 10 years, Wible figures.
So the main advantage of the huge park may be promotion of the brand and merchandise.
China’s tourism market is filled with inexperienced but ambitious competitors for Disney, from theme parks to golf resorts to cultural parks.
Declaring it hopes to overtake Disney as the biggest global tourism company by 2020, Wanda Group opened a 20 billion yuan (€2.7 billion) entertainment complex in the southern city of Nanchang in May.
Wanda, founded by Wang Jianlin, Asia’s second-richest businessman, bought Hollywood studio Legendary Entertainment in January.
Challenging environment
China is a challenging environment in other ways, with official controls on business activities and on taking profits out of the country. Live shows like Disney’s Lion King musical must be approved by Chinese censors.
Disney’s DisneyLife direct-to-consumer online movie and book offering was closed in April, five months after opening, amidst a Chinese regulatory review.
In the Shanghai park, Disney needs its Chinese partner’s approval to change restaurant prices and other management details.
“They are hamstrung in a lot of areas,” said Rein. But still, he said, Shanghai Disneyland “is far above anything else in China”.
YouGov, a market research firm, said 44% of people it surveyed in China in May said they plan to visit Shanghai Disneyland within a year.
It said 80% plan to take family members.
“Disney is good. I had a lot of fun during the trial. It is exciting,” said Wang Lei, who works for a food chain in Shanghai.
The architecture, the castle and other buildings are very special.
“I’m sure I will go again, maybe again and again,” she said.
I’ll bring my kids and relatives from my hometown.
But Disney faces the danger that it might be so crowded potential visitors would be put off.
“People are waiting in line for long hours to have fun, which is not fun,” Wang said.
It says more about America’s healthcare and insurances industries than it does about the people involved.
exactly! I’d do the same and pretend to “sue” my nephew and get the insurance company to pay my overly expensive medical bills if his parents were ok with it.
I don’t think this has anything to do with insurance. Sounds like she has a good job in human resources and can afford to live on the upper east side of Manhattan, so it would be highly unusual for someone in her situation not to have good health insurance. This just sounds like she’s being a greedy bitch and wanted more money to cover the “emotional distress” she experienced and knew the young lad had it to spare because of inheritance from his mothers death.
Id say she does have good health insurance,so good they cover the $127000 hospital bill but also with a stipulation that she sues whoever caused the damage to try and recover the money,insurance companies always try to recover the money.She probably sued her nephew after getting assurances from a solicitor that the case would be thrown out immediately. If she had to pay those hospital bills herself she could have went bankrupt,over a broken wrist,that is the bigger story.
That’s not how Health insurance works in NYC. So there’s no such stipulations, Karl.
If the family had contents or liabilities insurance thats exactly how it would work.
I live in NYC, I have health insurance and I’ve had to make plenty of claims. If you’re covered, you generally pay very little and there’s no such stipulations like you describe in order to have your medical bills payed. It’s not like car insurance where you claim it back, it’s paid automatically and you just pay a small co-pay/deductible. Thrust me, that is ridicules.
Awful backwards country at times.
No, it was one idiot who was told to fck off by a jury.
True, but it says she basically had to sue to get her medical expenses paid. I’m delighted she was told to fck off, but the fact that she had to go down that avenue is backwards.
I’d break her other wrist…stupid b**ch !!!
Just what can expect here in the good old USofA. Being Irish and working in the US I keep a larger than normal personnel space between myself and
Did you even read the article? No, of course not.
The story is all over the wire here twit. You obviously have never been sued and fraudulently at that. I spent a small fortune defending my business against spurious claim. Which involved oral dental damage to the tune of $70,000. The case was eventually thrown out after costing $12,000 in court cost that I will never recoup.
Then she’d sue you for that. Sure where would it end then?! She’d have 2 snapped wrists, another date in court and you’d be sent to the Joy. Violence has its place for sure Aidan but not here… Unless she came at you with a hug and it was in self defense, it’s not called for.
“Get on the telly and tell ‘em you still love me, or I’ll crush you, you snotty nosed little twerp”.
My suspicions are that the two of them might have been conspiring on this one.
He might have been on a nice little earner.
It probably wouldn’t haven taken much to pay off a kid either. “I’ll take the cash and buy you a bar of chocolate every day for a whole year”. “A whole year? Deal.”
‘Can’t I even get to keep the suit Auntie Jennifer?’
“Suit? What do ya want a goddam suit for, you’re 12. I’ll give you a suit alright. A straight jacket is what you’ll be wearing if you don’t take that off right now and put it back into that suit bag before you get chocolate all over it. Don’t make me come over to ya.”
The law suit you mean?
Well preserved without a doubt.
She’s also a Human Resources Manager (chuckle)
Every publication who made a big deal out of this suit should be ashamed of itself.
This was a non-story turned into a click-bait fiasco by the media.
It is not unusual for people to sue as a means to (legitimately) get insurance money. You have unfairly made it look as though it was a pernicious act. It is utterly pathetic journalism.
I can’t believe her medical bills for a broken wrist was $1,27,000!!
A bit like the case over here recently where the blind man fell out his friends window and had to sue his friends to claim off the house insurance.
Deborah $127,000 for medical costs for a broken wrist in the US, sounds about right. Charge for trip to A+E is about $2,000 by itself. Then doctor’s fee X-ray, charge for cast or splint plus all the other charges. That’s just A+E. the article says nothing about how bad break was.
The other side of is the health system over there is corrupt and if you don’t have health insurance, your screwed, most ppl end up in debt after hospital treatment .
This kid shows more maturity as a 12 year old than the aunt in question.
It’s quite common here after a traffic accident involving life changing injuries for say a wife to sue a husband for damages to be paid by his insurance and vice versa..It’s not personal and the couple remain married.It’s to pay for any losses and pain and suffering caused.Probably similar to what happened in this case.Although the woman in the case above seemed to take inordinately long to take the case.
She should get the Cersi treatment from Game of Thrones. SHAME, SHAME, SHAME.
Jennifer Connell dropped the O for the soup I’d say
Saw this on Facebook and I really thought (and hoped) this was fake! What an absolute cow!
Still loves her =
The luck will turn on her…
* Still loves her = 13
WOW
This story is another numbers game with probably Zero truth in it..
“Disgrace” = 66
“a complete shock” = 11
accident happened on 18 March, 2011.> 13
“Negligence And Carelessness” = 239 Plutonium.
In other news ..”LAMOR ODOM” is a word for word anagram for “ALARM DOOM” .
Spelling Error : ”LAMAR ODOM” is a word for word anagram for “ALARM DOOM” .
How can an 8 year old break your wrist by jumping into your arms?
In fairness, neither of them resorted to guns in order to sort out their differences. It’s hard to love the ones you kill.
In the USA, real life is even more off the wall than the zaniest television drama.
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