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News Disney and Miral Announce New Seventh Theme Park Planned for Abu Dhabi
- Thread starter DCBaker
- Start date
Sir_Cliff
Well-Known Member
I am always a little curious about this, including in Shanghai where I did wonder whether people grew up with Peter Pan the way they did in the US or in Europe.
Taking a quick glance at the UAE box office, current Disney films do seem to do very well there. I did notice that Onward was released there and got to #1 at the box office despite being banned in some other countries in the region for a very brief reference to a same-sex partner.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
This wouldn’t be the first park licensed from an American media company. Warner Bros World Abu Dhabi seems like a pretty logical place to look for such questions. It features legacy properties. It includes Wonder Woman who on the signage outside is wearing pants but as a face characters she has fake bare legs (which is something Disney has done as well). Harley Quinn is depicted in the park in her more contemporary short shorts outfit. The lead creative designer of the park was Dave Cobb, an openly gay man.
TheMaxRebo
Well-Known Member
Didn't mean to imply that b/c of that it meant the Abu Dhabi one won't happen - very much expect it to.
Was just trying to think of anything that got cancelled after being announced
Singapore had plans drawn up before they were scrapped and Disney went with HK instead. But it was never officially announced.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
Port Disney if you think they were serious about it. WestCOT was also announced.
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
Anyone subscribe to Status?
A Whole New World
Disney’s next mega-park in Abu Dhabi comes with a surprising financial twist—and Status has learned exclusive details about the deal that the company has kept under wraps, until now.www.status.news
NY post has reposted the estimate as over 10 billion.
Vegas Disney Fan
Well-Known Member
This is an interesting question, partially because the UAE had a very small population until fairly recently and partially because its current population of 10 million people is mostly foreign nationals, 28% of the population are nationals of India, another 14% are nationals of Pakistan, only 12% of the UAE population are actually nationals of the UAE, the remaining half come from all over the region.
The bigger questions may be whether the region has a positive reception of the older movies and what percent of the region will actually be able to afford a Disney park, there’s an insane amount of money in the UAE and the surrounding area but it’s concentrated in a very small number of hands.
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
Much more than anything since Euro Disney, this is being built with destination tourism in mind.
It’s not merely a Disney park, it’s just a crown jewel in a lot of things Miral has been pulling together the last 15 years. They really are trying to make Orlando 2.0.
Which is a long winded way of saying the market is larger than UAE, I think the 500k income verified people they are looking at in that 4 hour flight range is the end goal and not just a talking point. The Sadiyaat district is quite impressive and almost ready.
Biggest problem with making it Orlando 2.0 is that Orlando just has so much more to do. The sense of scale is significantly different in favor of Orlando, it is far more navigable 12 months out of the year, and you aren't required to build giant buildings just to make people want to come to visit. Either emirate has a better airport, better public transportation, and definitely more money to spend on such projects, but I don't know if it is ever going to come close to getting Orlando numbers or the importance in the industry.
Although who knows maybe this will spur Buddy into creating a copycat cultural center downtown, because God only knows we could use something there now that he killed all the nightclubs. Would be a better use of the tourism tax than putting a roof on Camping World or expanding the convention center again to compete with Chicago on conventions that are never going to move out of Chicago.
And $7B is just for air conditioning!!
Vegas Disney Fan
Well-Known Member
I’m sure that’s true, I’m just wondering who the target market is, Paris will be much closer to the vast majority of Europes population, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Tokyo will be much closer to the vast majority of Asias population. India is a gigantic population but has a low average income, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, etc could probably provide a decent number of guests.
The UAE gets about 20 million tourists a year, it would take the majority of them visiting the Disney park to match the attendance of the other parks around the world.
Edited to add that I may just be thinking of this on the wrong scale, I’m envisioning a park meant for 10-15 million guests a year, maybe that’s not the intention, if their goal is 5 million guests a year that’s a completely different idea than what I’m trying to make sense of.
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Vegas Disney Fan
Well-Known Member
This is what I’m trying to wrap my head around too, the UAE reminds me much more of Las Vegas than Orlando, the draw is the architecture, the shopping, the dining, the city itself… I just don’t see a massive audience for theme parks there, especially with their outdoor temps also being similar to ours.
The adventuredome in Las Vegas manages about 2-3 times the attendance of FerrariWorld but that’s with double the number of tourists, 20 million tourists could probably bring in 2-5 million guests a year for a theme park, that’s a far cry from the 10-15 million the other parks average.
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
I think you are somewhat confusing gate clicks with unique visitors.
Yas Island (the specific section that will house this park) hit 38 million “gate clicks” in 2024.
On the other hand, 20 million unique visitors to the country pales compared to the 75 million Orlando itself currently has, but that’s not a worrying place to start with one Disney park. As mentioned, quite a lot of things are opening between now and then and their tourism goals are quite optimistic. It’s further away from Paris than Orlando is from LA and Hong Kong almost double that. I don’t think this is meant to service Western Europe in the same way Disneyland isn’t meant to service the East coast. But Eastern Europe, Middle East, India, Northern Africa - absolutely.
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
I think you are actually thinking mostly of Dubai, without realizing the divergence that already exists between the two cities.
Though Dubai at one time also had these aspirations, it’s far more about luxury shopping and grandiose high rises. Abu Dhabi is already more about theme parks and museums without Disney changing that calculus.
Though Abu Dhabi has some important architecture, it’s the grand mosque, palace and oriental hotel (not a high rise) than exclusively crazy high rises and malls and private enclaves like Dubai.
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Reedy Creek paramedics earn their pay with frequent heat exhaustion calls in the WDW parks in the brutal summer. Hopefully Abu Dhabi has enough medical staff working to handle those guest heat exhaustion calls. We were at MGM Studios back in the day and at first aid when we got some complimentary Tylenol all the makeshift beds were full of guests suffering from heat exhaustion.
There’s a lot of ifs and buts discussed here along with a lot of questions about target demos and overlap of existing resorts.
One things for sure - someone’s done a lot of number crunching over this. If it wasn’t beneficial to do, they wouldn’t be doing it
I’ve read reports somewhat general that Disney is targeting the income qualified group of 500 million people all a four hour flight to Abu Dhabi including a growing middle class from India. Some from the USA may go but I wouldn’t bet the bank on it. Approx 50% of the USA population doesn’t even have a passport.
fradz
Well-Known Member
I might be not seeing the whole picture but, from a financial standpoint, how would it not be beneficial? It's free money for Disney, they get their teams employed and they sell to someone for a large amount of money.
Sir_Cliff
Well-Known Member
That's kind of how I see it. Disney probably wanted reassurance it wouldn't end up closed and abandoned in the near future due to brand damage, but whether the park itself turns a profit is Miral's problem. As far as Miral is concerned, they may not even expect it to turn a profit in the near future and are thinking about it more in terms of bringing in more visitors and revenue to the Yas Island complex as a whole and positioning it for future growth.