At a price tag of 5.5 billion US dollars, shared between Disney and a local conglomerate, Shanghai's Disney theme park will be the largest in Asia and the third largest in the world. Shanghai's getting excited.
An increasing number of tourists from the Chinese Mainland have been visiting Disney Resorts during their holidays. Last year, Hong Kong Disneyland had 7.5 million visitors, 48 percent of them from the Chinese Mainland. Ctrip, China's leading online travel agency, says that the Tokyo Disney Resort is among the most popular attractions for family trips to Japan. Estimates are that the Chinese Mainland's first Disney resort will see between 10 and 15 million visitors in the first year and that THAT number could double in three years.
Sun Yunlong, professor at Fudan University's Tourism School, says that the potential traffic is already bringing multiple changes to areas nearby.
"Theme parks like Disneyland offer many products. Visitors stay there for a long time or overnight, so it will have a great effect locally. Infrastructure is remoulded, public services are improved. It also boosts the local economy by providing employment opportunities, increasing tax revenues, and upgrading industry. What's more, it changes the image of the travel destination. Shanghai as a travel destination has a large number of visitors, but the city lacks historical natural resources compared to many others. It's hard to find an attractive travel product here. But cultural tourism in the city will be richer when Disney opens," Sun said.
Trying to capture an increased number of tourists in the area, new shopping blocks such as Florentia Village, the biggest outlet shopping center in China, have opened up nearby. The Chuansha area where Disney's new resort is located has seen the number of accommodation service chains grew 80 percent to 34 in the past five years.
The Shanghai government has also been building a transportation network for the new Disney Resort - with new roads, an extended S2 Expressway and a public transportation hub under construction.
And since the entire Yangtze River Delta Region already has a well established transportation system through which people can travel between the main cities by high-speed rail in a couple of hours, Shanghai won't be the only one to benefit from the new Disney Resort.
Suzhou, Hangzhou and Wuzhen are some of the most popular additional travel destinations for tourists visiting Shanghai. Industry insiders say these places will enjoy the spillover effect from Shanghai's Disney Resort. According to Goldman Sachs Gao Hua Securities, when the six month Expo 2010 was held in Shanghai, the number of tourists visiting nearby attractions such as Wuzhen and Hangzhou in the Yangtze River Delta Region grew by 80 percent.
Source: CCTV
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