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Disney delays plans for mainland China parks

HONG KONG (AP) -- The Walt Disney Co. won't build a park in mainland China until at least 2010 and will focus instead on its Hong Kong park, the company said Monday.

Disney's statement follows a weekend announcement that Shanghai signed a deal to open a Universal Studios theme park in 2006.

Disney had been in talks with Shanghai, the mainland's wealthiest city, but said it will now keep its sights set on the Hong Kong park, which is due to break ground January 12 and is scheduled to open in 2005-2006.

"We have been in discussions about the potential of a park in Shanghai or another market in China for quite some time, but in all likelihood a second theme park in China would not open before 2010," said Irene Chan, an Asia-Pacific spokeswoman for Disney.

Chan declined comment on Universal's plans, which were outlined in a preliminary agreement signed Saturday. But she indicated that Disney was still looking for potential mainland locations.

"We have to look throughout the country for theme park opportunities and right now we cannot highlight or pinpoint one particular city," Chan said.

The Universal development will be mainland China's first international-standard theme park.

Earlier reports that Disney might open a park in Shanghai in the next few years raised a debate in Hong Kong over whether the territory's officials had negotiated an exclusivity arrangement that would shield the Hong Kong park, largely financed with taxpayer money, from competition.

Critics worried that a Shanghai park could lure mainland Chinese visitors away from the Hong Kong park. But the announcement of Universal's Shanghai plans caused little stir here, despite Hong Kong's chronic anxiety over the possibility its northern rival might upstage it as a financial and trade center.

"China is an enormous country and can easily sustain more than one big theme park," said Simon Clennell, a spokesman for the Hong Kong Tourism Board.

Disney expects Hong Kong's park, located on the outlying island of Lantau, to attract at least 5.6 million visitors a year, one-third of them from mainland China, Chan said.

Disney, based in Burbank, California, has located its regional office in Hong Kong, viewing the Chinese market as strategically important as that of Japan, where it has two successful theme parks: Tokyo Disneyland and the recently opened DisneySea.

"The key markets for us are Japan, China and Hong Kong, with our park investment," Chan said.

Foreign theme parks have proven a hit among Japanese. Expanding internationally as the U.S. market matures, Universal and Disney hope to replicate that success in China.

China's domestic tourism market is booming, and millions who might lack the means to travel overseas are expected to welcome the novelty of a world-class park.

Los Angeles-based Universal's Shanghai park, said to be on a scale with $1 billion parks elsewhere, is to be a mix of Hollywood and traditional Chinese themes. Disney's park in Hong Kong will be designed to resemble Disneyland in Anaheim, California.