Mickey's Chinese adventure

If you are a child, child-at-heart or plain saddled with pesky brats, take heart. Disneyland has now come much closer to home. You needn't plan a trip all the way to Orlando or even Tokyo to meet Mickey & Co and breathe in the great American consumerist culture.

Instead, like McDonald's, Disney too has come much closer to home. This week, the Walt Disney Company, celebrating 50 years of its first park in California, set up shop in Hong Kong, making it just the second Disney park in Asia, 11th in the world.

As such, the new venture underscores Hong Kong's ambition to reposition itself as a tourist "family" destination rather than remain a posh business address. And India figures in the scheme of things.

We may be a long way from acquiring our own Disneyland, but of the estimated 5.6 million guests projected for the Hong Kong park's first year, a substantial number, Disney hopes, will come from India.

"We are looking very, very closely at India and Australia, from where we expect one-third of our guests" says Mabel Chau, director, sales, Hong Kong Disneyland. That it would take many more flights and increased air capacity to bolster the numbers, is another matter.

Chau says a third of the tourists will come from mainland China and another third from amongst the local populace and neighbouring areas like Taiwan, places within a one-hour flying radius.

So far so good. But the picture may not be as rosy as it seems "" or as "magical" in Disney parlance, where everyone from the shopkeeper to the security insists on wishing you a magical day, every few minutes.

As in Paris, the Disneyland resort in Hong Kong hasn't come without its share of controversy. In culturally snobbish France, protest against such an obvious slice of Americana was only to be expected.

In Hong Kong, however, the controversy has included ill-advised attempts to cosy up to local culture "" shark fin soup was ostensibly included in the menu of one of the restaurants, inviting even more outrage from environmentalists who were already crying foul about the end-of-the-day fireworks.

To be fair, though, Disney does seem to be trying very hard to appease eastern sensibilities ""- the Park incorporates feng shui elements amongst other things. But the going is not quite as smooth for other serious reasons too with the financial prudence of the project being questioned.

The park is the result of a joint venture between Disney and the Hong Kong government. The total investment of the project "" two years in the making, six in planning "" is pegged at HK $14.1 billion.

A majority of the tab has been picked up by the Hong Kong government (3.25 billion in equity, 6.1 billion in debt as loan to the JV company) in return for a 57 per cent stake in the venture.

Local groups are now questioning the soundness of such a mammoth investment (by comparison, the Hong Kong government invested HK $1.82 billion on developing family tourist attractions "over the past few years", according to a release). While the net economic benefit from the project is estimated at HK $148 billion over the next 40 years, there are enough doubters as to the actual returns.

The local press, for instance, is going to town, pointing out that in the absence of an exclusivity contract, a Disney park in Shanghai intended in a couple of years, will eat into the business.

Then again, there are doubts as to the repeat clientele: The Hong Kong park is much smaller, with a limited number of rides and attractions, than the ones in the US or even Tokyo. And Disney officials themselves put the average time a tourist spends inside the park at nine hours. This is opposed to several days elsewhere.

In such a scenario, will there be enough people spending enough money and coming back for more? For now, however, the new JV company is brushing away the doubting Thomases. Who is right, only time will tell.