Disneyland Shanghai worth $5.5bn opens with support from Xi Jinping and Obama

Disney sees the resort as an opportunity to capitalise on China’s middle class and to capture a slice of the country’s $610 billion tourism industry

Ten of thousands of people are expected to visit the Disneyland resort in Shanghai on Thursday as the $5.5 billion park opens its doors after five years of construction.

The park, which is the largest investment from Disney overseas, opened its doors with fireworks, dancing Disney characters and support from two of the most powerful leaders of the world, US President Barack Obama and China’s President Xi Jinping.

Disney sees the resort as an opportunity to capitalise on China’s middle class and to capture a slice of the country’s $610 billion tourism industry.

“I hope that Shanghai Disney can provide visitors with safe and premium experiences and become a world class theme park. I hope it promotes exchanges across cultures of the world,” President Xi Jinping said in a letter read by Vice Premier Wang Yang at the park opening ceremony on Thursday morning.

Barack Obama said the resort is to capture “the promise of our bilateral relationship” in a letter read by Robert Iger, Disney’s chief executive officer.

The US President added that the resort “reflects the growing relationship between our nations”.

(Rex Features)

Disney estimates that 300 million people are living within a three hour commute to the park. That includes visitors who can afford the park’s entrance fee as ticket prices vary from $56 during off peak times to $76 at weekend.

If Disneyland Shanghai manages to attract 18 million annual visitors, it should produce $150 million in earnings before interest, taxes and other items by 2018, Anthony Diclemente, an industry analyst at Nomura Securities, wrote in an investor note Wednesday.

Amid fireworks and a Mickey Mouse parade, not everything has gone as planned.

The grand opening on Wednesday night was rained off, while Iger, Disney's chief executive, had to be called away to give his sympathies to the family of a young boy who was grabbed by an alligator and killed at a Disney park in Florida on the same day.

Still Iger has said the Shanghai park is as important for Disney today as the establishment of Walt Disney World in Florida was for the company in the sixties.

Along with six themed lands, including Treasure Cove, devoted to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, as well as Fantasyland and Tomorrowland, the Shanghai resort includes a Broadway-style theatre, two hotels, a 123-acre park and a shopping district with more than 50 retailers.

Areas such as Frontiersland or Westernland as it is called in Disney Tokyo are not featured to avoid accusations of Western imperialism.

To reduce the US feel, Main Street has also been replaced by Mickey Avenue while attractions include a Wandering Moon Tea House, a Chinese Zodiac-themed garden and a Tarzan musical featuring Chinese acrobats.

The resort is Disney sixth park and fourth one oversees. The other foreign locations include Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

Additional reporting by Reuters