Hong Kong Tourism Commission's Disney Brainchild

The HK government again displays their double standards for covering up their big Disney White Elephant, allowing for Chinese vistors there (only). And, it is only a short lived solution, maybe a numbers boosting exercise for a year, if they're lucky, then what, turn it into a casino?

How can this benifit HK? These tourists visit Disney only and then return to China. No one other than Chinese travel companies and Disney benifit (read US based company benifits). No money is spent in HK, no one else has this 'Donald given right' to this exclusivity, it all sounds like government intervention.

Hope you dont mind the slight change to the title - I have dropped this onto the home page under the hot threads and thought this would give a bit better idea re: the topic

Have a read of Hong Kong's fading magic kingdom, spot on, Go Goofy!

Won't be long before Disney is closed. Another Cyberport debarcle

"How can this benifit HK? These tourists visit Disney only and then return to China. No one other than Chinese travel companies and Disney benifit (read US based company benifits). No money is spent in HK, no one else has this 'Donald given right' to this exclusivity, it all sounds like government intervention."


Well, Disney pays salaries to employees, buys food, water, electricity and supplies, and so on and so forth. There's even an effect on public transportation. So arguably a lot of money ends up in the HK economy. The big question is where the parent company reinvests money/pays dividends.

Couple of things, for start, travel and visa restrictions on Chinese citizens who visit Hong Kong, are not placed by the Hong Kong government, the Chinese government places restrictions on its own citizens visiting Hong Kong not the other way around. The Hong Kong Government would more than welcome these people coming to Hong Kong and spending their money everywhere. It is the Chinese Government which has made this contingency.


It does benefit the Hong Kong Government however, as they are the major shareholder in the Hong Kong Disneyland, but I doubt very much that the government in Beijing takes into account the state of the Hong Kong governments coffers, or whether independent projects that the HK government is a shareholder in are profitable or not when making policy.


Secondly people are extremely critical of the Disney Land project in general. These people tend to criticise the government no matter what it does. They criticized in 97 when the Asian financial crisis hit that the government had not done enough to stave of recession and negative equity for home owners. And they criticize now calling HK Disney a white elephant.


Its all very mundane and highly predictable, these people tend to criticize in general but fail to offer any viable alternatives ever. People forget that HK courted Disney aggressively after the financial crisis hit, it was felt that a world class theme park (which we did not end up getting) would increase tourism and generate some much needed respite from the financial crisis, the construction of the park itself would provide jobs when they were needed. We were competing with cities in China itself, Korea and Thailand even big spending Dubai to get the theme park located in Hong Kong, and it was bitter competition and Disney was acutely aware of this fact and extracted its pound of flesh, which is why we are left with this bizarre ownership structure.


Was it worth it, well obviously hindsight is a wonderful thing, if we knew that attendance was going to grow so slowly and the park would only be a fraction of the size of other parks perhaps our tax payer dollars would have been better spent elsewhere.


But it does things for Hong Kong that go beyond what we see and hear in terms of mere dollars and cents. For a start it diversifies Hong Kong's economy further away from just property and financial services, something that badly needs to be done and it expands its tourism attractiveness from being just a mecca for shopping. Whether you think the park is terrible or not, having the brand Disney here is a bon a fide attraction. Tourists in Asia have the choice of going either to Japan, The US or Europe if they want to take their kids to Disneyland and for a parent in Thailand for example, Hong Kong is going to be the cheapest alternative.


Its very easy to criticize, I'd hardly call Disney a white elephant and even if we agree that it is, what exactly would you have done if you were the Hong Kong Government in 1998, when every man and his dog was hurting, the outlook was bleak, everybody was crying out for the government to do something with the massive reserves it had accumulated and the Walt Disney company came a knocking saying they wanted to set up a theme park in Asia. I very much doubt anyone in their position would have turfed Mike Eisners boys out on their butts, and did exactly what they did, which is everything in their power to make sure that park got built in Hong Kong, which it did.

To all those above that slam Disney, have you actually been there.

My self and my youngest 2 kids are annual pass holders so we go up there a lot, and absolutely love it, there's always something to see and do. What is there is great, and very much has the Disney feel to it, (i have been to Eurodisney and LA so I have something to compare it to), but yes it is small, but hopefully will get larger over the years, as Eurodisney has done. 2 major rides have been added since it opened, and they are currently surveying guests as they leave asking them what they think and what they would like to see. As for numbers, it is always really busy when we go, don't know how it would cope with much higher numbers.

From little things big things grow. Don't forget, Ocean Park has been operating for 25+ years.


As people have mentioned already, HK does benefit from many different perspectives from the Disney theme park. Stop bagging it.

I was a skeptic but recently visited Disney and loved it. It was like being in another world, I just love Disney's incredible attention to details. The beverage prices were very reasonable, but we didn't eat there. I wish I had gone sooner - I am leaving HK soon but have already made plans to get in another visit. It would be nice to see some kind of HKID card privileges though.