Shanghai Disneyland will hold its three-day grand opening ceremony starting from tomorrow (May 14), greeting its fans with a specially made Chinese version of the Broadway classic musical The Lion King. The Disney resort will be formerly open to the public this Thursday, from noon to 10 pm.
All systems are go for the June 16 opening of the USD 5.5 billion Disney Shanghai Resort, the largest foreign investment ever from the world’s biggest theme-park operator.
Officials at the theme park say that the main challenge ahead of the official opening will be to reduce the queuing times to get on rides and into venues on the site. They also plan to increase their emergency preparedness to deal with unusual weather events such as heavy rains or heat waves.
Shanghai Disneyland is the company's 3rd theme park in Asia. The other ones are in Tokyo and Hong Kong. Shanghai Disneyland is three times the size of the Hong Kong park, but non-peak tickets in Shanghai cost around 20 percent less.
Hong Kong Disneyland, a 47%-owned venture with the local government, has been unprofitable for eight of its 11 years, including 2015. The smallest Disney resort at 310 acres, Hong Kong was hurt by a decline in mainland Chinese tourists last year, according to its annual statement. The resort lost USD 19 million on sales of USD 659 million.
Disney hasn’t shown a profit on its international theme park investments since the company began breaking out the business in 2004, according to filings. The results since 2011 include the still-under-construction Shanghai resort, as well as Hong Kong and Disneyland Paris, though not Tokyo.
