We do not fear Shanghai Disneyland, says new Hong Kong Ocean Park boss
Matthias Li is confident that the park can attract more visitors from southern China and neighbouring countries
New Ocean Park chief executive Matthias Li Sing-chung is confident the theme park will continue to draw visitors from southern China and neighbouring countries despite the opening last month of Shanghai Disneyland.
Li, who officially took up his new role on Friday, said increasing competition from mainland theme parks would not drive away Ocean Park’s usual visitors, as mainland demand was large and growing fast.
Instead, he saw theme parks in the Pearl River Delta as allies rather than rivals, who would help bring more enthusiasts to the region in the future.
“The most important thing for a theme park is to find your strength and position,” he said, adding his park featured unique local culture as well as international elements, which mainland parks lacked.
Li said the US$5.5 billion Shanghai Disneyland park could easily reach its capacity with the 150 million residents living in the Yangtze River Delta.
“The mainland market is so big, we don’t need to worry about the source of clients,” he said.
Dozens of amusement and theme parks are springing up on the mainland to cater to increased demand from domestic tourists. There are reportedly about 300 parks across the nation.
US-based consultancy Aecom expects China to surpass the US as the biggest theme park market in the world by 2020, drawing 221 million people by that time.
Li, who joined Ocean Park as finance director and corporate secretary in 1994, said the park’s business “had dramatically changed” since the individual visitor scheme was started for mainland tourists in 2003. He believed the potential of the scheme had not been fully exploited.
He expected the completion of the bridge to Zhuhai and Macau and the Hong Kong section of the high-speed railway to Guangzhou would bring more tourists from the south of the country.
“Convenient transportation is the key,” Li said. He added the strategy to draw more nearby visitors also coincided with the city’s shift to a short-haul destination for mainlanders, as more overseas countries became accessible to them due to easier visa access.
Apart from the newly opened Disneyland in Shanghai, other players in the market in southern China include Water Park in Guangzhou and Chimelong Ocean Kingdom in Zhuhai.
But Li does not see them as rivals. “We had only three million visitors annually before Hong Kong Disneyland opened in 2005. We both have seven million visitors now,” he said, quoting a tourist study stating that visiting theme parks had become the second most popular thing to do in Hong Kong.
Despite the new CEO’s optimism, Ocean Park has not been immune to the downturn in mainland visitors to the city, with the park experiencing a 14 per cent drop in attendance last year.
Li said the park was looking to lure visitors from other Asian countries, in particular India. He said there had recently been a 40 per cent rise in visitors from that country.
