 |
||||||||||
| Home
|
The Disneyland Report > Disney News > Disney walks the cultural line Disney NewsDisney walks the cultural line Dennis Eng The increasing Americanisation and homogenisation of mainland consumer tastes may leave little room for Walt Disney to tamper with the magic of Mickey and Minnie when it opens its first theme park in China in about a year's time. Disney executives have taken great pains to learn from the various successes and mistakes encountered over the years at the company's two other overseas resorts in Tokyo and Paris. But a generation of Chinese children and youths raised to eat McDonald's, drink Coca-Cola and follow the fortunes of National Basketball Association teams may now lessen the need to localise in foreign markets. "Paris was actually our first multicultural theme park since, in Tokyo, more than 95 per cent of our visitors are Japanese. "So even though it is in a foreign market, it is a very homogenous market,'' Walt Disney Parks and Resorts president Jay Rasulo said at a conference on Wednesday. The same could well be said for Hong Kong, where Disney has striven to strike a balance between formulaic all-American entertainment and sensitivity towards the Chinese consumer. So far, efforts to give things a local flavour have included securing Maxim's Caterers to operate a Chinese restaurant at Penny's Bay, and deals with Plaza Inn and pastry shop Market House Bakery. Disney will bring in jeweller Chow Sang Sang to open a gold shop at the park, an obvious nod to the Chinese penchant for gold jewellery. And in July, Cantopop star Jacky Cheung started hosting a new Disney television programme, Magical World of Disneyland. To read the rest of this story, click here. Return to Disney News. |
|||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
The
Disneyland Report - Disney News and Secrets is not affiliated
with Disneyland |
 |
|||||||||
 |
||||||||||
