September 16 marked the officially opening of the very first STATE-OWNED Disneyland in Hong Kong. Why state-owned? Well, the Hong Kong government turns out is the major shareholder of the theme park with a 57% share.
When the plan for building a Disneyland in Hong Kong was still on the drawing board, hopes were high that it will be a boon for local tourism. It was expected that tourists, espeically those from the mainland, would flock to the former British Colony because of Mickey.
"The government emphasizes that the project's spillover effects on the economy as a whole can outweigh the low financial returns from the project itself. The official assessment of the project's contribution to gross domestic product is a maximum of HK$148 billion in 40 years." Read more here and here as well.
Well, sad to say, the government is....WRONG and DEAD WRONG on that. This just in, read this and this as well.
But should we be surprised at the result? Yeung W Hong up at Next Magazine and myself months ago have predicted that HK Disneyland is doomed to be a failure. (Sorry, no links are available as our writings are in Chinese only)
No comments:
Post a Comment