The park is an important investment for both Walt Disney Co and the Shanghai government as up to 30 million visitors are expected each year at the world’s biggest tourist market.

“The Shanghai government and Disney are trying to make the project an envy of the world,” said an executive of a service provider that has a global partnership with Walter Disney.

“In short, all the things available in all the other five Disney parks will be seen in the Shanghai park. But not all things in Shanghai can be found anywhere else.”

The US$5.5 billion investment in the Shanghai venture is estimated to drive about 30 per cent of Disney Theme Park profit growth over the next five years, according to a UBS report on China’s travel market last year.

Ticket prices have not been confirmed, but there has been speculation they will be between 400 yuan and 500 yuan.

Aiming to mainly attract families with children from throughout China, the resort will adopt different prices for different groups of people, Shanghai’s tourism bureau head Yang Jinsong said earlier last year.

Recruitment and staff training is now under way. The resort has already employed more than 1,500 local staff, and thousands of more jobs are expected to be created in the following months to support the start of operation.

To give locals a taste of Disney, a flagship merchandise store was opened at Lujiazui, Pudong, last May and is the largest of its kind around the world, offering more than 2,000 products from clothing, bags and stationery to smartphone covers.

City officials also plan to create synergy between the Disneyland and other mega entertainment complexes including the 3 billion yuan Polar Ocean Park developed by Haichang in Nanhui.

Officials said that tickets to the two theme parks could be offered to non-local tourists in a package to achieve a mutually beneficial development and a win-win scenario.

“The Shanghai Disney park is likely to usher in a large number of high-end commercial and residential projects in the neighbouring areas,” said Joe Zhou, head of research in Shanghai for global property consultancy JLL.

“It is highly expected that the area of Chuansha where Disneyland is based will become a new investment magnet with an influx of population.”

Industry insiders expect about 15 million people to visit the resort in the first year, and a yearly visiting population of 25 to 30 million is projected when operation matures.

Among the major attractions, the Enchanted Storybook Castle is believed to be an ace card for the Shanghai theme park, with the tallest, biggest and most complex Disney castle ever built.

A golden finial will be installed on top of the tallest of the castle’s eight towers. The castle will also be the first to represent all the princesses in the Disney pantheon.

The resort’s other big draws will include the company’s first pirate-themed land and the longest parade route of any of the Disney parks.

Visitors can also expect attractions based on the Star Wars franchise and Marvel Comics superheroes, including Spider-Man and Iron Man.

Disney chief Bob Iger previously said that the park would be “authentically Disney and distinctively Chinese”.

“We are building something truly special here in Shanghai that not only showcases the best of Disney’s storytelling but also celebrates and incorporates China’s incredibly rich heritage to create a one-of-a-kind destination that will delight and entertain the people of China for generations to come,” Iger said.

One section of the theme park will feature a Disneytown tailored to the shopping, dining and entertainment needs of Chinese visitors with a 3000 sqm World of Disney store, two hotels, and a 40-hectare Wishing Star Park with natural scenery. A garden mosaic will depict the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac using Disney characters.

Huang Shilin, a 33-year-old mother of two children in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, said she would definitely consider Shanghai Disneyland as a top option because of its convenience and price.

“Who will go to Hong Kong Disneyland when we have one at our door? Even if we want to visit a foreign Disney park, I will go to Tokyo, which many of my friends recommended,” she said.

She said compared with Hong Kong, a visit to Shanghai’s resort would obviously cost much less. “Hong Kong is more expensive in every regard, and hotel rooms are not as spacy and new as on the mainland,” she said.

HONG KONG

Shanghai Disneyland may well be about three times the size of the Hong Kong site, but local tourism industry experts do not believe it will be a simple case of “the bigger, the better” when it comes to attracting visitors.

Just this week Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Greg So Kam-leung emphasised that Hong Kong Disneyland was positioned for a different market as it had more international features.

“Of course [the opening of Shanghai Disneyland] will have some effect on the Hong Kong Disneyland” he said.

“[But] Shanghai Disneyland highlights more Chinese characteristics ... [Hong Kong is an] international playground.”

The Hong Kong home to Mickey Mouse had received more than 50 million visitors since it first opened in 2005. In its glory days between 2010 and 2013, the park experienced double-digit growth in visitor numbers, while it slowed to 1.4 per cent in 2014 with 7.5 million people visiting the park — still a record high.

Despite the slowdown, Hong Kong Disneyland remains extremely profitable. Its net profit jumped 36 per cent to HK$332million in 2014 from the prior year, while its revenue hit a new high at HK$5,466 million with a 12 per cent growth from the previous year.

However, a visit to the theme park is not cheap, as the HK$539 admission fee for adults is 40 per cent higher than its local rival Ocean Park’s equivalent offering and doubles the prices of its most mainland peers.

Although it’s only less than six months before the official launch of the Pudong-based park, some keen mainland Disney fans have no intention to defer their trips to Hong Kong, as many of them see the new park as another opportunity for a Disney experience, not an alternative.

Meanwhile, the Lantau-based park, with roughly half of its revenue contributed by mainland tourists at present, has stepped up its efforts to lure local and oversea tourists in response to the potential decline of mainland tourists.

Iron Man Experience, a new attraction to be launched in Tomorrowland late this year, will show the Marvel hero Tony Stark fly all the way from the park to Victoria Harbour, where he will battle along the city’s main roads.

Fairy Tale Forest, which opened last December, draws on the power of the Disney princesses, with re-enactments of well-known scenes from five classic Disney princess stories.

A Disneyland spokesperson said it was specially designed for Hong Kong site, in order to cater Asian tourists’ addiction of taking selfies, “especially those from Southeast Asia,” she said.

The spokesperson said the size of the park had already been expanded by a 25 per cent after the establishments of three new areas in the past few years. A new hotel with 750 rooms is expected to open in 2017.

“The resort is committed to continuously introducing new and innovative experiences to delight guests that visit from around the world,” a spokesperson said.

So told lawmakers this week the government was in talks with Walt Disney, the park’s US partner which holds a 48 per cent stake, to further expand its site.

Meanwhile, mainland tourists told the Post that Hong Kong Disney remained attractive to visit, due to the drawcards of Hong Kong’s infrastructure, climate and other leisure activities.

Wong Jie-ju, 40, mother of a 10-year-old primary school boy from Harbin, Heilongjiang province, said:

“What makes Hong Kong special is that mums could also have fun with shopping when kids enjoy fairytales at the park.”

Despite many analysts expecting that visitors from the northern part of China will be inevitably be absorbed by the Shanghai park, benefited by shorter distances, Wong, who is from the northernmost province on the mainland said that the city’s warm weather in winter was “the most appealing reason” for her to visit Hong Kong.

“It is minus thirty degrees [Celsius] in Harbin now,” she said.

“It’s not something that you can only choose one,” said Lu Mei-yin, 45, a graphic designer from the northern coastal city Qingdao. She took her 11 year-old daughter to the park last week.

“It’s very easy to for us to visit Shanghai. We will definitely go later,” she said. “We have heard a lot about [Hong Kong Disneyland] since she was little.”

Lu, who was on her first visit to Hong Kong, was also amazed by its well-equipped infrastructure and the shopping.

“There are more things to do in Hong Kong, as well as other famous attractions like Victoria Peak,” she said.