Shanghai courts Disney for new theme park

While Hong Kong Disneyland reworks its marketing schemes to attract new visitors to the flagging amusement park on HK’s Lantau Island, which has failed to live up to expectations since opening in 2005, another Chinese city is taking steps to open a Disney resort of its own.

Shanghai is boomtown, and has been for the past decade. The city is developing at an alarming rate, and city planers are mulling over the idea of DisneyWorld Shanghai. The city’s mayor Han Zheng was quoted recently as saying, “We have applied to the National Development and Reform Commission but so far we haven’t received notice of approval. “Any big-scale project of this kind has to have central government approval, and Shanghai will abide by the central government’s decision.”

Word from the Disney camp is non-committal, saying only that they have not reached an agreement with local authorities concerning the possibility.

If this Disney park goes through, it will be the third Disney resort in Asia. Tokyo’s Disey resort has performed very strongly for years, even spawning a spin-off neighbour resort ‘Disney Sea’, but Hong Kong’s resort has not fared as well, and Shanghai wil have to be careful about putting the cart before the bull.