Opinion | Ocean Park’s glory days are behind it – use the site for housing, and invest in Hong Kong Disneyland instead

Between dwindling attendances and fierce regional competition, Ocean Park is struggling. Better to use the 91.5-hectare site to meet a pressing need – housing

If money is to be used for theme park development, spend it on expanding Hong Kong Disneyland

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Ocean Park occupies a site of 91.5 hectares compared to Tai Koo Shing’s 21.5 hectares. That means we could have three housing developments of a comparable size, providing 40,000 decent apartments and still have 30 hectares left over for green space. Photo: Martin Chan

Published: 10:00am, 26 Jan 2020Updated: 8:28pm, 26 Jan 2020

When my two eldest children were very young, some 40 years ago, we bought annual passes to Ocean Park for the whole family and visited often. It was far and away the best option for a family day out at that time. As the first commissioner for tourism (1999-2000), I visited again to show support and acquaint myself with plans for future development.

The negotiations with the Walt Disney Company, which l was involved in and which led to the agreement to build Hong Kong Disneyland, were ongoing at the time. There was concern in some quarters that a new internationally branded theme park would call into question the existing park’s future viability.

Fortunately, then chairman Allan Zeman threw himself into the marketing of Ocean Park and it flourished under his leadership. The 2005 development plan, implemented in phases at a cost of HK$5.55 billion, was supported by loans from the government and private banks.

Even after the opening of Disneyland in 2005, Ocean Park increased its annual attendance, to a peak of 7.7 million in the financial year 2012-2013. Unfortunately, attendance thereafter declined and by 2016 had fallen to 6 million. There was a further slight fall to 5.8 million in 2017 and 2018.

The social disturbances of the past few months have significantly affected attendance and the 2019 figure will probably drop below 5 million. But the important point here is that the decline in business began well before the recent troubles led to a sharp drop in the number of mainland visitors.

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