Hong
Kong a roller coaster for
Disney By Kent Ewing
HONG KONG - There was good end-of-year
news for the Walt Disney Co in this newly crowned
Disney city: finally, three months after its
much-heralded opening, Hong Kong Disneyland sold
out twice in December. The bad news, however, may
be that the World Trade Organization had to come
to town for its sixth ministerial conference,
which culminated in street rioting and 1,000
arrests, to fill the park the first time. And
nothing less than the birth of Christ was required
for the second full house.
The holiday
season has been kind to Disney. Overall, however,
the company's first four months in Hong Kong have
been like one of its more exhilarating
roller-coaster rides - full of dips and rises and
marked by sharp, exciting and sometimes even frightening
turns. For the record, Disney
executives express beaming satisfaction with their
Hong Kong takeoff. But they also have no doubt
written up a list of new year's resolutions for
the Hong Kong park, chief of which must be to
boost the so-far-disappointing attendance.
The Hong Kong Special Administrative
Region government, which owns 57% of the US$3.2
billion resort, is counting on 5.6 million
visitors in its first year, or an average of
15,342 a day. A head count over a two-day period
by four reporters for a local newspaper, however,
tallied 12,972 on one day and 11,399 on the other.
Disney's vice president of marketing and sales in
Hong Kong, Roy Tan Hardy, dismissed the count as
inaccurate and misleading, adding: "We're actually
very happy with the attendance ... so we are not
concerned."
But Tan Hardy also refused to
reveal the company's own attendance figures, which
goes to the heart of Disney's public relations
problems in Hong Kong. Surveys show that as many
as 80% of Hong Kong residents support Disneyland's
presence here. But most also chafe at the
company's lack of transparency - especially since
Hong Kong taxpayers footed 90% of the cost of
constructing the resort in a sweetheart deal that
gave Disney a 43% share of the profits for a 10%
investment. The lopsided arrangement shows just
how badly the Hong Kong government wanted to bring
the Magic Kingdom to the city. Just as badly, the
government now wants the deal to pay off.
So far, reviews are mixed. Although Disney
plans to expand the park, its present size of 130
hectares makes it by far the smallest Disneyland
in the world. Consequently, many Western visitors
find Hong Kong Disneyland cramped and, on those
infrequent occasions when large crowds do turn
out, claustrophobic. Westernized Hong Kong Chinese
also complain.
But for visitors from
mainland China, Disney's biggest target audience
in Hong Kong, the experience is very different.
For the most part, they appear to be having a
great time, but there is a twist: they do not
spend as much money as Disney would like, because
they take so much time snapping photos and
lingering over meals. Some of them make the short
trip on the special Disney train line that runs
from the city to Lantau Island, where Disneyland
is located, and spend all their time taking photos
in the beautifully landscaped public area, which
features a lake and a large arboretum, without
ever actually entering the park.
Other
strange tales emerging from these opening months
include reports of mainland visitors taking photos
of themselves on the monitor image of the Space
Mountain roller-coaster ride, instead of
purchasing the photo from Disney; jumping out of
the Mad Hatter's Tea Cups as the ride begins (to
snap pictures, of course), thus halting the ride
for everyone; photographing their children
standing beside the balloon seller, but not buying
any balloons; and occupying restaurant tables for
as long as an entire day.
Disney may not
have anticipated every cultural challenge from the
mainland, but the company has nevertheless gone to
great lengths to make the Hong Kong park
attractive and culturally sensitive to Chinese
visitors. After all, it is not Hong Kong's
population of nearly 7 million that has Disney
executives so excited; rather, the potential
audience of 1.3 billion on the mainland is the
company's biggest target. Disney, for example,
consulted feng shui masters - that is,
experts in the Chinese art of harmonizing people
and their environment - about the design of the
resort, which faces the South China Sea with
mountainous Lantau serving as a striking backdrop.
The only eyesore in the area, the three stacks of
Lamma Island's power station, are hidden behind
hectares of parking lots.
In addition,
signs throughout the park are written in both
Chinese and English, and there are bilingual
how-to explanations for each of the park's 13
rides. While Westerners complain that other Disney
parks offer more rides and bigger thrills,
Disney's research showed that mainland visitors
desire a tamer experience. You will still find
Disney standards such as Space Mountain, the
problematic Mad Hatter's Tea Cups, the Jungle
Cruise and the Buzz Lightyear Astro-Blasters. But
it seems such creations as Fantasy Gardens - where
visitors can mingle and pose for photographs with
Mickey, Minnie and other Disney characters - are
more appealing to mainland visitors.
Disney has also clearly been attentive to
local tastes in its choice of food. There is a
wide variety of international cuisine on offer at
the Hong Kong park, but Chinese staples abound.
Disney even took (yet another) public relations
hit, this time from conservationists, when it put
shark's fin soup, a traditional Chinese delicacy
served to mark big occasions, on the
wedding-banquet menu at the Hong Kong Disneyland
Hotel. (Because of fears of overfishing and
revulsion against the brutal way in which the fins
are harvested, the dish is illegal in a number of
countries, but not in Hong Kong or on the
mainland.)
With all this effort to attract
mainland visitors, why, then, are the results so
far modest at best? There could be a number of
reasons.
First of all, the 17 test days on
which Disney opened the park gates for selected
visitors before the official September 12 opening
were generally considered a disappointment,
receiving unfavorable reviews in both the Chinese-
and English-language media in Hong Kong. One
particular test day - a charity day that filled
the park to its supposed capacity of 30,000 people
- was a notable fiasco, with visitors suffering
waits of more than two hours for rides and
restaurant tables. Government officials were
alarmed enough by what happened to question
whether Disney had overestimated the number of
people the park could hold.
And then, once
the park opened, it did not help the company's
image when a former security guard, sacked by
Disney for allegedly using foul language on the
job, climbed to the top of the building housing
Space Mountain and threatened a suicide jump in
protest against his release. In November, Disney
employees, complaining of unfair treatment,
launched a union, taking some more of the "magic"
out of Hong Kong's Disney experience.
In
fairness to Disney, however, Euro Disney (now
Paris Disneyland) faced more controversy and
teething problems than Hong Kong Disneyland when
it opened in 1992. You can be certain that Euro
Disney did not have 80% support from the French
when it opened, one reason being that the park
initially did not serve wine - in France! Disney
has a track record of learning from its mistakes,
and demonstrated this during the past month when
the company proved that the Hong Kong park could
hold 30,000 and run smoothly. Now Disney
executives must figure out a way to make that
happen on a more regular basis.
Some
observers have wondered whether the hotel and
ticket prices at the resort are too high to lure
the mainland hordes across the border. The
resort's two hotels, with the cheapest room going
for $128, are expensive by any standard. To Hong
Kong residents, however, admission prices to the
park are quite reasonable: on week days, it is $38
for an adult ticket and $27 for children; on
weekends, the respective prices go up to $45 and
$32. That makes Hong Kong Disneyland the cheapest
of any of Disney's five parks around the world,
but it is still a costly proposition for many on
the mainland - where, despite roaring economic
growth, the gross domestic product per capita is
only $5,600, as compared with $30,000 in Hong Kong
and $40,000 in the United States.
Coming
off an attendance bump over the holidays, Hong
Kong Disneyland starts the new year with fresh
resolve and optimism. "The biggest challenge of
bringing a Disney park to this part of the world,"
said Disney marketing strategist Tan Hardy, "is
that not all audiences grew up with Disney stories
and characters, so there are varying levels of
familiarity and understanding. Our priority has
been to introduce audiences all over the region to
the classic Disney experience ... through TV, road
shows and interactive media events."
Although the results to date are somewhat
underwhelming, Disney executives are betting the
bank on linking the success of Hong Kong
Disneyland to continued economic growth on the
mainland. And, despite a few public relations
glitches, it remains a very good bet - especially
after Hong Kong taxpayers put down 90% of the $3.2
billion ante.
Kent Ewing is a
teacher and writer at Hong Kong International
School. He can be reached at kewing@hkis.edu.hk.
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