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Disneyland’s Cost a Hurdle for Chinese

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Times Staff Writer

Disney cartoons first appeared on Chinese television in 1986, and Zhu Aihua was one of those glued to the tube.

“Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck were on at 6 o’clock,” says the Guangzhou woman, now 25. “It was our family dinner time. So usually I took a tiny bench and sat in front of the TV to watch the show while I was having dinner.”

Come Monday morning, she and her mom plan to skip work and hop on a plane to join a throng of thousands expected for opening day at Hong Kong Disneyland. “It will be like going through a time machine and living like a child again,” Zhu says.

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Disney is counting on people from mainland China to make up a third of the park’s guests, with the rest coming from Hong Kong and nearby Asian countries. But unlike Zhu, most Chinese know little about Disney stories or characters. And the price of Hong Kong Disneyland tickets ($45 for adults and $32 for children on weekends and holidays), plus the cost of travel and lodging, will be a stretch for many.

Nationwide, China’s per capita income is around $1,300 a year. Chinese are notoriously thrifty, typically socking away 40% of their earnings. Zhu makes three times the national average income working for a telecommunications company. Still, she’s going on a tight budget.

She and her mom bought a super-saver Disneyland package that includes a 50-minute flight from Guangzhou to Hong Kong, a night’s stay at a five-star hotel near the airport and a day’s pass to Disneyland -- all for the equivalent of $96. The one catch: The air ticket is just one-way.

Zhu says they’ll make their way back home by bus, a three-hour ride across the border for about $12. Zhu is budgeting $4 for lunch, but she won’t find many items that cheap at Disneyland. A popular Chinese pork sandwich sells for $5, a small egg tart for $1.25. And visitors won’t be allowed to bring food or drinks inside.

Mainland Chinese may also be turned off if the crowds are so large that they’ll have to wait a long time for a seat on a ride or at a diner. That’s what happened Sunday when about 29,000 people entered the modest-size park during a charity day. Many of the visitors complained about hourlong waits, prompting Hong Kong officials to urge Disney to reduce its maximum capacity of 30,000. Disney refused to lower the daily limit, saying it would be able to manage the crowds.

Apart from opening day, which has been sold out because attendance is being restricted, Disney executives would not talk about the number of tickets sold or rooms reserved at its two hotels on site. Roy Tan Hardy, Hong Kong Disneyland’s marketing head, is expecting a big turnout during the national Golden Holiday in the first week of October, although he says it’s hard to tell now because Chinese tend to plan their vacations just seven to 10 days ahead.

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Hardy and his staff have been targeting the 70 million people who live in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other cities in southern China’s Pearl River delta. In recent weeks Disney marketers have taken Mickey and Minnie on road shows to shopping malls in some of those cities, and they’re hoping that the ads running this week in Hong Kong will be picked up by satellite in many people’s homes in that region.

Over all, Hong Kong Disneyland is projecting 5.6 million visitors in the first year. About 12 million people from the mainland visited Hong Kong last year. With incomes rising, many Chinese have been touring all over the world, and Beijing has helped by making it easier to obtain visas and permits, particularly to Hong Kong.

Travel agents across the country say there’s interest in the new Disney park but nothing spectacular.

“Many people have called and asked about Disney, but right now they’re far from crazy about it,” says Zhang Xiaojun, manager of China Travel Service in Beijing, which has sold about 1,000 Disneyland tour packages. Cost is a major factor: Zhang says customers often drop out when the travel package exceeds their monthly income, typically about $250 in Beijing. Zhang’s Disney excursion starts at $400.

Dong Ming of Jin Jiang Travel in Shanghai says much the same thing. He says he’s slashed his Disneyland-air-hotel price by a third, to about $220, for travel next week. But Dong expects bookings to accelerate as the holiday approaches. “Hong Kong is a very popular destination for Shanghainese,” he says.

Many in Shanghai routinely fly to Hong Kong on shopping sprees; others shuttle back and forth for business. And young professionals find Hong Kong a relatively cheap weekend escape.

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Bai Lin says the only Disney characters he knows are Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. The 23-year-old doesn’t remember a single Disney movie. But he and his girlfriend, plus 10 of their friends, will spend a day at Disneyland when they visit Hong Kong next month.

Bai plans to live it up a bit. He’s budgeting at least $500 for the five-day trip, including a night at Disney’s Hollywood Hotel for $160, to be split four ways. Bai says he hasn’t been to a theme park since junior high, when he went on a school outing to a park in nearby Suzhou.

“Disney is a world brand and should be much better,” says Bai, who works for a transportation agency and makes about $550 a month.

In more inland and less affluent Chinese cities, some will be making the long trip to Mickey’s house by train. China Comfort Travel in Zhengzhou in Henan province is offering a seven-day Disneyland special for about $220. It includes round-trip tickets for the 23-hour train ride from Zhengzhou to Hong Kong, accommodations, seven meals and one Disneyland ticket.

Li Yongju, the agency’s vice general manager, says 200 people have signed up so far. That’s a lot fewer than Li had expected.

“I thought it would be really crowded and hard to book a room in Hong Kong during the first week of opening,” he says. “Obviously that’s not the case.”

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Researcher Cao Jun in the Times’ Shanghai bureau contributed to this report.

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