HKDL Source has posted a mash-up of a kinda creepy ad for Hong Kong Disneyland (hat tip: MouseVine Feed):
It’s a fun mash-up, but with such great source material there’s plenty more to mine here. The original commercial is also on YouTube, in case anybody else wants to give it a shot.
Two news stories caught my eye today, technically unrelated but both datelined “Hong Kong”.
DIS News reports that Disney has been found to violate Chinese labor laws:
Workers at a Chinese factory making Disney toys are overworked, underpaid, exposed to dangerous toxins and forced to live in filthy conditions, a labour rights group said in a report Wednesday.
The EarthTimes reports that things aren’t all that much happier at Hong Kong Disneyland:
On top of its disappointingly low crowds, a survey conducted by the Disney Cast Members Union among 470 of the 5,000-odd staff found that 63 per cent were unhappy with management, complaining largely of unequal treatment and what they see as unfair work distribution.
More than 80 per cent of respondents said they wanted Hong Kong Disneyland to bring its labour practices in line with those at the Disney park in Florida, where staff can be accompanied by union officials at disciplinary hearings and have access to independent arbitration.
Blue Sky Disney has an interesting article today, speculating about roadmaps for new parks at Disney resort areas worldwide. The bottom line? We won’t see additional “gates” at any of the existing resorts for another decade.
Through the latter part of this decade we’ll look forward to shoring up the state-side parks(DCA in particular), Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland will focus on expanding their current offerings before any plans get approved for more fun factories. Think of it as repairing a fleet of cars that have been abused for a decade before you go out and buy a new series of cars. Lots of refurbishment and expansion ahead of us friends…
The most interesting sentence to me:
When [WDW resort hotels] start approaching Disneyland levels (above 90 percent) then you’ll see the executives in Team Disney Burbank start putting those blue sky plans on the front burner.
Um, about that . . . doesn’t seem to me that’s likely anytime soon, especially if you include DVC (there seems to have been a recent glut of Saratoga Springs rooms on the market lately). And hey, Pop Century Legendary Years, anyone? Apparently occupancy rates at WDW haven’t even been high enough to convince Disney to finish building it.
The article has good analysis and interesting speculations. And don’t miss the comment, there’s some good conversation going on there too.
Hong Kong Disneyland said Tuesday it recorded double- digit growth in mainland Chinese visitors last month, but it was unclear if it can boost business enough to keep banks happy with current lending arrangements.
“The next few months are key for us…This is the biggest quarter where roughly 50% of our business is done,” Managing Director
Bill Ernest told reporters. “We are expecting solid performance all summer.” Hong Kong Disneyland, owned 43% by Walt Disney Co. (DIS) and 57% by Hong Kong’s government, declined to say how many visitors it has attracted, though executives said mainland Chinese account for 30% to 50% of the total.
The park has twice missed performance targets set by its lenders and it acknowledged in May the banks could withhold future funding if it fails to meet those targets, which are linked to a US$294 million commercial loan and a line of credit that hasn’t been used.
This comes shortly after LaughingPlace.com reported a rumor (which I saw via The Disney Blog) about possible commitments to improve Hong Kong Disneyland:
We’ve heard that the Disney board are due to meet in the next week to determine whether to approve the remodelling plan for DCA. However a separate plan for Hong Kong Disneyland is to be presented in the same session and is competing for the same available resources. There is a possibility that the board could approve both but split the available capital accordingly. It seems that Jay Rasulo has a perference [sic] for concentrating on DCA initially but Bob Iger has an eye on improving the fortunes of the Company in China.
Might not be a coincidence that these two stories came up around the same time. Certainly the argument for improvements and expansions to Hong Kong Disneyland becomes even stronger if the park is seeing a badly-needed surge of attendance; the park doesn’t yet have a sufficient number of attractions to keep Guests occupied. And given Disney’s apparent eye on long-term strategies in China, they should want to strengthen that park, even at the expense of the much-maligned Disney’s California Adventure.
As if Chow Yun-Fat wasn’t already suffering from a lack of sufficient screen time in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End . . . Chinese censors have cut him back even further:
Chinese movie star Chow Yun-Fat’s role in “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” has been slashed in half by censors in China for vilifying and defacing the Chinese and insulting Singapore.
The film, which was released on the mainland early this week, shows only about 10 minutes of Chow’s scenes while in the Hollywood version his scenes take up about 20 minutes of the film.
According to EarthTimes.org, the Hong Kong government won’t release attendance figures for Hong Kong Disneyland.
The Hong Kong government Wednesday refused to release attendance figures for the territory’s Disneyland theme park amid suspicions that the 3.5 billion US dollar venture is struggling to attract visitors. The park, which opened in September 2005, has not released any attendance figures for eight months since it admitted it had fallen around 500,000 visitors short of its first-year target of 5.6 million.
Combine this with the fact that they’re apparently desperate enough for Guests to offer free Annual Passes for anyone born in 1997, and I think you’ve got a picture of a park in trouble. But let’s not forget, Euro Disney wasn’t exactly an instant hit either, and these days it’s doing quite well.
According to DIS News, Disney and the Oriental Land Company (which owns and operates Tokyo Disneyland are planning a new “entertainment facility” outside Tokyo:
The facility, which will be all indoors, will include retail stores and restaurants and will be located in a “city outside of the greater Tokyo metropolitan area,” the Tokyo-based company said in a release.
I’d love to know where they’re going to build it. My first thought was of Oita prefecture, a vacation favorite among the Japanese (and the home of Sanrio Harmonyland), but given the lovely weather I can’t imagine they’d put an all-indoor facility there. Maybe Osaka, given the proximity of an international airport and overall ease of transportation?
Another DIS News story reports that Disney’s working on a park in India:
Walt Disney Co. has approached the Government for land to build a theme park near the national capital, an official said on Sunday, in a move to tap a potentially huge market.
“Disney has asked us for land for a theme park,” an official of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) said.
But I’m a little confused by the last line of this story, which makes me wonder if somebody accidentally re-sent an old press release (despite the fact that the dateline says May 9, 2007):
Disney is also hoping to tap the Chinese market with the opening on September 12 of the Hong Kong Disneyland, the first in China.
PRN Newswire just sent out a press release about Chow Yun Fat’s recent trip to Hong Kong Disneyland (all pictures and quoted text here copyright PRN Newswire).
Chow Yun Fat, who plays the pirate Sao Feng in the upcoming movie Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End, visited Hong Kong Disneyland to experience the totally new Pirate Takeover. Chow and his wife took photos with Pirate Mickey, Goofy and Pluto. From May 4 to June 30, 2007, Adventureland will be transformed into Pirateland and guests will have a totally immersive and interactive fresh new experience at Pirate Takeover!
Oh. My. God. Pirate Takeover! And, um, is it just me or does that sound just a tad more adult than they might have intended?
How badly do I want replicas of the flags they’re flying over the bridge? (Come to think of it, how badly do I want to visit Hong Kong Disneyland? Well, apparently not badly enough to have booked flights or anything, but give a girl a break, there’s only so many frequent flier miles in my account!)
In Adventureland, now Pirateland, flanked by two rowdy pirates, Chow Yun Fat and his wife prepared to hop on board the Jungle River Cruise, Pirate Takeover! to discover the traces left by pirates along the exciting journey. From May 4 to June 30, 2007, Adventureland will be transformed into Pirateland and guests will have a totally immersive and interactive fresh new experience at Pirate Takeover!
Okay, I’m not much of a Jungle Cruise fan to begin with. Racist stereotypes, anyone? Poorly updated animatronics? But a good Skipper can make the ride more than worthwhile. Dress that skipper up in pirate garb and you might just get me to ride again.
Chow Yun Fat smiled delightfully as he discovered the movie props he had used from the blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End, which Captain Jack Sparrow had nicely agreed to showcase at Professor Porter’s Trading Post. From May 4 to June 30, 2007, Adventureland will be transformed into Pirateland and guests will have a totally immersive and interactive fresh new experience at Pirate Takeover!
Captain Jack Sparrow nicely agreeing to anything? Hold your tongue, mister. Nobody talks about Captain Jack that way.
Since filming Pirates of the Caribbean 3 : At World’s End, it was the first time that Chow Yun Fat met up again with Captain Jack Sparrow at Pirateland, Hong Kong Disneyland! From May 4 to June 30, 2007, Adventureland will be transformed into Pirateland and guests will have a totally immersive and interactive fresh new experience at Pirate Takeover!.
Mr Broke Hoedown (aka Collateral Damage) asks in his blog today how things went this year for Lunar New Year at Hong Kong Disneyland. I’m reasonably sure his blog today is the first time anyone has written a sentence beginning “I sure wish I was married to an obsessive Disney fan,” and it also did contain this excellent tidbit about the year of the Pig:
Disney hopes the great swine can come to its aid. Its Three Little Pigs characters were featured prominently in New Year’s celebrations at Hong Kong Disney. Also Mickey, Goofy, Donald et al. wore traditional Chinese clothing during the festivities wrapped up last week. “The pigs are part of a marketing campaign aimed at shoring up the park’s reputation which was tarnished last Chinese New Year when overcrowding made officials lock the doors, barring scores of mainland tourists with valid tickets from entering.”
And I must say, it does sound like things went better than last time around for Lunar New Year at the park. I couldn’t find a single report of children being thrown over fences. What I did find was these news stories:
The Standard reports that Hong Kong Disneyland’s falling attendance levels may force a refinance:
“If these trends do not significantly improve,” Hong Kong Disneyland will not meet performance promises it made to bank lenders, Disney said in a filing with the US securities regulator.
Disney will then be forced to refinance the US$294 million (HK$2.29 million) in debt taken out for the park.
“The early going in Hong Kong has been more challenging than we had hoped,” Disney chief financial officer Tom Staggs told analysts gathered at Walt Disney World in Florida for the company’s 2007 investor conference.
“The decreases at Hong Kong Disneyland … were primarily due to lower attendance and guest spending,” the company said in its report.
If I only had enough frequent flier miles saved up, I’d gladly go spend a couple bucks there to help the cause.
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