Disney tailors Hong Kong park for cultural differences
Keith Bradsher IHT
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
HONG KONG Walt Disney is taking a series of steps to address local cultural sensitivities as the company prepares to open Hong Kong Disneyland a little more than a year from now, its president said here Tuesday night.
The theme park, long controversial here because of lavish investment in it by the local government, will include local food and music and provide services not only in English but two forms of Chinese, said Robert Iger, Disney's president and chief operating officer. He described these steps as part of a broad effort by the company to recognize national differences around the world.
"We know if we're too U.S.-centric, the products won't be too relevant to those markets," Iger said. "That's particularly true as it relates to Hong Kong Disneyland."
Esther Wong, a Hong Kong Disneyland spokeswoman, said that the company had rotated the orientation of the entire park by several degrees in the early design phase after consulting a master of feng shui, a Chinese geomantic practice of seeking harmony with spiritual forces.
On the master's advice, the company also designated part of one kitchen as an area where no fire would be allowed, so as to maintain the proper balance of forces there, she said.
"This is essentially an American product, but it's a question of how we tailor it to an audience in this part of the world," Wong said. "Disney is an American brand, and our guests, our potential guests, believe in this product."
As Disney prepares to open the park, including the broadcast of the first television ads in Shanghai starting Thursday, there are some signs of growing anti-American sentiment here. A survey of nine Asian countries and territories released Monday found that 47 percent of residents here held a negative opinion of the United States, second only to Indonesia.
Gallup and TNS, a London-based a market information company, conducted the survey, which reported that the poor opinion had been shaped mainly by U.S. foreign policy, with residents still holding a much higher opinion of the American economy.
The survey did not include mainland China, where simmering nationalism has most recently been directed against Japan, but where anti-American protests did erupt five years ago after the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.
Eden Woon, chief executive of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, which was the host for Iger's speech, said that he saw very little chance of any anti-U.S. protests here and doubted that any such sentiments here would hurt Hong Kong Disneyland.
"China always is conflicted between accepting foreign things and trying to maintain its own culture," he said.
The park is being built with 22.45 billion Hong Kong dollars, or $2.88 billion, in investments by the Hong Kong government. The government provided the land and is building road and rail links to it, although some of the road and rail costs might have been incurred even if the theme park had not been built.
The government owns 57 percent of the park, and Disney owns the rest. The government also holds subordinated shares that would convert to ordinary shares, raising the government's ownership as high as 75 percent, if the park does much better than originally envisioned.
Many here were upset after the deal was signed by the disclosure that Disney was in separate talks to open another theme park in Shanghai. Disney has not concluded any deals in Shanghai, however, and has said that any park there would not open before 2010.
Iger said that Disney already employed 1,000 people in Hong Kong, and would employ 5,000 by the time the park opens. Many theme park employees will speak both Cantonese, the language of southeastern China, including most Hong Kong residents, and Mandarin, the mainland's main language and the language of school instruction.
An unemployment rate of 6.9 percent helped prompt 5,000 people here to apply recently for 500 jobs as "cultural representatives" who would go to Walt Disney World in Florida in January and stay there for training until next summer. They will then return to Hong Kong to train other workers for the opening of the park.
While Iger said that the park would open in roughly a year, Disney executives have been careful to say that opening day could come in either late 2005 or early 2006.
Keith Bradsher IHT
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
HONG KONG Walt Disney is taking a series of steps to address local cultural sensitivities as the company prepares to open Hong Kong Disneyland a little more than a year from now, its president said here Tuesday night.
The theme park, long controversial here because of lavish investment in it by the local government, will include local food and music and provide services not only in English but two forms of Chinese, said Robert Iger, Disney's president and chief operating officer. He described these steps as part of a broad effort by the company to recognize national differences around the world.
"We know if we're too U.S.-centric, the products won't be too relevant to those markets," Iger said. "That's particularly true as it relates to Hong Kong Disneyland."
Esther Wong, a Hong Kong Disneyland spokeswoman, said that the company had rotated the orientation of the entire park by several degrees in the early design phase after consulting a master of feng shui, a Chinese geomantic practice of seeking harmony with spiritual forces.
On the master's advice, the company also designated part of one kitchen as an area where no fire would be allowed, so as to maintain the proper balance of forces there, she said.
"This is essentially an American product, but it's a question of how we tailor it to an audience in this part of the world," Wong said. "Disney is an American brand, and our guests, our potential guests, believe in this product."
As Disney prepares to open the park, including the broadcast of the first television ads in Shanghai starting Thursday, there are some signs of growing anti-American sentiment here. A survey of nine Asian countries and territories released Monday found that 47 percent of residents here held a negative opinion of the United States, second only to Indonesia.
Gallup and TNS, a London-based a market information company, conducted the survey, which reported that the poor opinion had been shaped mainly by U.S. foreign policy, with residents still holding a much higher opinion of the American economy.
The survey did not include mainland China, where simmering nationalism has most recently been directed against Japan, but where anti-American protests did erupt five years ago after the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.
Eden Woon, chief executive of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, which was the host for Iger's speech, said that he saw very little chance of any anti-U.S. protests here and doubted that any such sentiments here would hurt Hong Kong Disneyland.
"China always is conflicted between accepting foreign things and trying to maintain its own culture," he said.
The park is being built with 22.45 billion Hong Kong dollars, or $2.88 billion, in investments by the Hong Kong government. The government provided the land and is building road and rail links to it, although some of the road and rail costs might have been incurred even if the theme park had not been built.
The government owns 57 percent of the park, and Disney owns the rest. The government also holds subordinated shares that would convert to ordinary shares, raising the government's ownership as high as 75 percent, if the park does much better than originally envisioned.
Many here were upset after the deal was signed by the disclosure that Disney was in separate talks to open another theme park in Shanghai. Disney has not concluded any deals in Shanghai, however, and has said that any park there would not open before 2010.
Iger said that Disney already employed 1,000 people in Hong Kong, and would employ 5,000 by the time the park opens. Many theme park employees will speak both Cantonese, the language of southeastern China, including most Hong Kong residents, and Mandarin, the mainland's main language and the language of school instruction.
An unemployment rate of 6.9 percent helped prompt 5,000 people here to apply recently for 500 jobs as "cultural representatives" who would go to Walt Disney World in Florida in January and stay there for training until next summer. They will then return to Hong Kong to train other workers for the opening of the park.
While Iger said that the park would open in roughly a year, Disney executives have been careful to say that opening day could come in either late 2005 or early 2006.