Hong Kong Disneyland admission off - park failes to lure visitors

[EUROPACL]

I don't think I have seen whether the resort is making or losing money; just that attendance is lower than expected.

Paris continues to lose money.

I don't think a 3+ billion dollar theme park makes money in its second year....reguardless of attendance drop.

 

[Another Voice]

The real difference about the recent years is really within Disney itself.

The original parks - Disneyland, Magic Kingdom, EPCOT Center - were built by people that loved the parks. Making designs, planning, creating the impossible were what everyone wanted to do more than anything else in the world. The people that built them had confidence in their work and their ability to figure out what people wanted -they were sure of their own success. When the occansional problem happened (like Holidayland), they instantly went about correcting the situation.

The modern parks - from Disney/MGM Studios through Hong Kong and DCA are all business deals. The managment behind them don't even like theme parks in general, let alone get excited about making one of their own. Passion and pride has been replaced with calculation and marketing. No one really cares if the public likes the places or not - it's nothing but a business problem to solve.

 

[raidermatt]

Paris continues to lose money.

As you noted, the primary problem with EuroDisney was the overbuilding of hotels, not the park.

It was also a questionable location, thought they had managed to get things going in the right direction until they opened Disney Studios Paris, which of course was woefully underbuilt. That's what plunged the resort back into trouble.

PBB is right in that the fundamental problem is one of value. Of course you can screw things up in other ways, but if you lack what the public deems to be a strong value proposition, it's going to be an uphill climb from day one.

 

[PBB]

Certainly, the people I met at WDI did care about the projects. however, I think the imagination or the opportunity to be creative is gone that is for sure. They are building cookie cutter projects and rides now. All the rides at HK have already been built elsewhere. So, HK does not have any stand alone or signature rides.

I think Disney is still having a problem of forcing the "Disney" way down the throats of consumers in foreign countries. They failed in France and it sounds like they are struggling in HK.

I still believe that they should lower the prices across the board and make it up with volume sales. However, Disney would rather raise prices and watch attendance go down for some reason and have a half empty park, hotels that are not at capacity and a public perception problem.

Don't get me wrong, I have been a huge Disney Fan since the first time I went in 1971. However, when Eisner came in it became a business of short term P/L and 20% returns and stopped being the Disney we all grew up with. The 80's we all fell in love that our company was doing so great then the beast came in the 90's. The Disney Decade was the death to the parks as far as I was concerned.