Disneyland Hong Kong Details (kinda of)

[Another Voice]

If Disney could get someone to pay a billion dollars for a park, they’d be happy. I they can get someone to pay five hundred million for a park, they’d be happy. It’s a simple commercial enterprise and you bring your products in at a price point the customer will pay. There’s no contradiction there at all. It’s no different than the same automaker selling both a luxury and an economy car. The alleged contradiction doesn’t exact except as a “we have to find a rationalization for every dumb move” strategy [grin].

As far as complaints go – I only have one. I’m tired of Disney being in the exploitation business.

Where is the creativity? Where is the imagination? Where is the joy of building something new? Where is the sense that they want to grow and improve. I became interested in Disney because of what they made – not to simply immerse myself in a brand experience at a favorable return on investment for someone else’s stock options. Instead of growing, the Company seems only interested in recycling, remaking and remarketing. What a waste of time and talent.

 

[Douglas Dubh]

Anyhow, for a poverty-stricken, communist, freedomless country, I'd say that HKDL sounds fine.

Hong Kong is one of the most economically free cities in the world, and one of the most prosperous.

 

[Bstanley]

I disagree with your assumption about the number of people with the 'neccesary' income Scoop. There are plenty of folks within an airplane ride of HK who can afford a 'full' price park.

To illustrate - What country buys the most Rolls-Royce automobiles every year? It is a country that is probably MOST known for it's poor. [see the bottom of the message for the actual answer]

With literally multiple billions of people living close to Hong Kong - it doesn't take a very high percentage of them being 'well off' to make up a plentiful pool of potential customers for a park.

It's probably just that legendary 'prudence' on the part of the Chinese investors that is controlling the extent of what gets built.

Actually you could probably have made the same argument against putting WDW in Orlando - people probably told Walt "don't put it in the middle of one of the poorest sections of the country miles from nowhere - look at DL - you get most of your customers from the surrounding area"...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Answer: India buys more Rolls-Royces every year than any other country - even though more of the world's poor live in India than live in any other country.

 

[Douglas Dubh]

There are over 7 million people in Hong Kong.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/hk.html

 

[Douglas Dubh]

...so?

So that is 7 million of the world's most prosperous people living right at the park's doorway. Take a look at the map. See that island just to the right of Hong Kong? That's Taiwan - home to 22 million people and a country with one of the highest GDP's in the world. Look just to the south, see all those islands? Those are the Phillipines - home to 84 million people, at least some of which have the wherewithal to fly a few miles to Hong Kong for a long weekend. Plus don't make the mistake of assuming the people of China will always be a "poverty-stricken, communist, freedomless country". Communism can't work, and it's inevitable that China will become more free and more prosperous; the only question is how long it takes.

You do realize that it's almost as far from Hong Kong to Tokyo as it is from California to Orlando, right? I think there will be plenty of people of sufficient means who will prefer going there to a lengthly flight to Tokyo or California.

 

[Bstanley]

Actually I think that a substantial number of those planes might just be from mainland China...The CIA factbook puts the Chinese economy at $4.8 Trillion for 1999 with a population of 1.2 Billion. If only the top 2% (a not unreal estimate of people who make more than $30K a year in China) of the population can afford a trip that's still more than 20 million potential customers.

Also - strange as it may seem it wouldn't be the first time that something 'Japanese' was cheaper in HK than it was in Japan... When I was a traveling man I visited Japan quite a bit and the trick was to buy a round-trip ticket to HK, with a 'stop-over' in Tokyo. The ticket was only a couple hundred dollars more expensive than the Tokyo ticket and by going to HK you could buy all the same stuff that you could buy in Tokyo - with the advantage that it was 50% less expensive in HK...

So for the potential Indian, Chinese or even Australian customer a 'full' park in HK might be a lot more interesting on price than visiting Tokyo. Not only will the hotel and park prices be much less than Tokyo, but it's like having a bunch of 'Outlet' stores nearby as well!

I'm still of the opinion that a 'full' park is economically viable in HK. A 'partial' park is probably also viable - IF it's done the 'Disney' way.

Now - If HK DL ends up as a bunch of decorated Tilt-a-Whirl's (ala DCA) it's going to bomb IMHO.