Shanghai Disneyland opens with hopes cash will rain down

Tens of thousands of guests entered Shanghai Disneyland on the opening day to explore the theme park’s attractions and live entertainment spectaculars – many being offered for the first time in a Disney theme park.

“I’ve just got back from Tokyo Disney and am really excited to show my little one Shanghai Disney”, said Ms Lin, who’d been up since 5am travelling to the park from Nanjing.

Shanghai Disneyland, the first of its kind in mainland China, will officially open on Thursday and it is facing tremendous competition from local theme parks, particularly ones from Wang Jianlin’s Wanda Group.

The $5 billion Shanghai Disney Resort features six themed lands that incorporate cultural concepts tailored for Chinese visitors, such as the Garden of the Twelve Friends, with Disney characters representing the dozen signs of the Chinese zodiac amid cherry trees.

The almost 1,000-acre, $5.5-billion Shanghai Disney Resort took five years to build and will be 43 percent owned by Disney with the rest by state-owned Shanghai Shendi Group, allowing the Chinese government a role in Disney’s infiltration of their culture through merchandise, tv shows and movies.

Xinhua contributed to the story.

Fireworks light up the Enchanted Storybook Castle as a shining symbol of Shanghai Disneyland on May 25, 2016 in Shanghai, China.

Despite slower growth, China’s economy still is one of the world’s best-performing and tourism spending is rising.

Shanghai Disney resort combined Chinese elements with authentic Disney characters. Iger said at the ceremony.

Disney would not say how many guests it let into the park on Thursday afternoon, but the company appeared to be holding attendance below maximum capacity.

Mr Iger and his public affairs teams, working almost around the clock from Shanghai in recent days, also had to contend with the mass shooting on Sunday in Orlando, which is in many ways a Disney company town. To compound the problem there were numerous instances where the ticket scanning machines came up with error messages and disgruntled customers looked on, seemingly unhappy that their first visit to the park wasn’t going as magically well as they’d expected.

Iger was in Shanghai to preside over the opening ceremony of this latest addition to the Disney machine.

Visitor Mao Yijun flew from Beijing to see the park.

Market analysts expect Shanghai Disney to attract 11 million people a year initially, increasing to 30 million when the park expands into a still-empty area – an expansion that Iger said “would happen sooner rather than later”. Although several attractions are versions of rides located in the other parks, like an all-new Pirates of the Caribbean, Dumbo’s Flying Elephants, and Peter Pan’s Flight, the new park has several attractions that are unique to Shanghai.

“Too many people” isn’t an unusual complaint at a Disney park or here, inside the world’s most populated country. The cost for a family of three to attend the park is more than one month’s income in mainland China.

Workers broke ground on the project in 2011 and the Shanghai Disney Resort now sprawls over 3.9km² on the city’s outskirts, with a fairy-tale castle soaring over the horizon.