The Walt Disney Company and the Hong Kong government announced a 1.4 billion US dollar investment to expand the city's Disneyland resort. That's to help the resort amidst increasing competition and comes after HK Disney's first loss in four years.
"It will add an additional 38.5 billion to 41.6 billion (Hong Kong dollars) of economic benefit to Hong Kong," said Gregory So, HK Commerce & Economic Dev't Secretary.
"So this, in view of these figures, it is very very positive for Hong Kong, for the employment opportunity that it will create - doing construction will be 3,500, and afterward it will be 600 and for Hong Kong as a whole that will generate 5000 employment opportunities. So these figures speak for itself."
Managing Director Samuel Lau said :" Shanghai (Disneyland) actually helps increase the brand of Disney in Asia and Hong Kong is unique, we differentiate our parks differently.
"We have more of an international flavour. A lot of our guest if you go out to the park today, we have guests from all over the different parts of the world. Different languages, and so we're very unique in that way.
"I think we need to quickly, you know, double up to make sure that we invest in tourism in the long run. Some of these projects will take time to build and create, and now is the time. Now is the time to grow, the park, the assets, so that we have an attractive offering when the market takes off."
The Hong Kong government owns a 53 percent stake in the theme park and will throw 750 million US Dollars into the project. That's while Disney will pay approximately 650 million dollars for the expansion from 2018 to 2023.
The park's iconic Sleeping Beauty castle will be closed for roughly two years during the construction. The park will add new themed areas featuring Frozen and Marvel - attractions that it hopes can help differentiate it from its other parks around the world.
The Hong Kong resort also faces competition from other theme park operators fighting for Chinese mainland visitors. That includes Dalian Wanda, which plans to spend billions of dollars to launch at least 20 tourism parks in China.
