Hong Kong Disneyland posted HK$2.4 billion (US$306.7 million) in losses for its last financial year – its seventh in a row without turning a profit – amid a series of pandemic-related closures and a near-complete absence of tourists. The results for the financial year ending on September 30, 2021, revealed by the company on Monday, were 12 per cent lower than the HK$2.66 billion shortfall recorded for the preceding 12 months. The theme park said it did not operate for about 40 per cent of the calendar days in the last financial year due to mandatory closures from the government’s Covid-19-related social-distancing policies. In spite of the challenges, Disneyland’s total attendance rebounded 64 per cent to 2.8 million year-on-year, driven mainly by Hong Kong residents. Revenue for the year grew by 19 per cent to HK$1.7 billion. The loss before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation narrowed by 34 per cent to HK$970 million. Hong Kong Disneyland managing director Michael Moriarty said the theme park had made “deliberate efforts” to preserve jobs in 2021, but employees were still made to take unpaid leave throughout the year. “To ensure adequate liquidity for continued operations, [the company] drew upon the revolver facility funded by The Walt Disney Company when needed and will continue to closely monitor its operational liquidity as the resort addresses the challenges ahead,” he said. The resort is 52 per cent owned by the Hong Kong government, with the rest held by the US-based Walt Disney Company via a joint venture called Hong Kong International Theme Parks. The attraction has only turned a profit in three years since opening in 2005. The embattled theme park on Lantau Island has been dealt a series of blows in recent years, first by the anti-government protests of 2019, then by the government’s decision to effectively close the city’s borders as the coronavirus pandemic emerged the following year, then by successive waves of tight social-distancing regulations. Its woes have also spilled into 2022, with the city’s ongoing fifth wave of infections forcing the park to shut its doors on January 7, with the closure expected to last through April 20. During the last financial year, local attendance for the resort grew 117 per cent year-on-year while annual pass memberships increased by 55 per cent, both at record levels. The resort’s three hotels continued to run at an adjusted operating level, with the utilisation rate of overall properties improving to 77 per cent from 34 per cent previously. Hong Kong Disneyland records worst-ever HK$2.66 billion loss amid pandemic Moriarty stressed there were currently no plans to seek funding from the government, increase ticket prices or impose more unpaid leave on employees. “When we were open, we were doing well. Our guests are voting with their hearts and wallets, that’s why we are enjoying record-high local attendance,” he said. The park is also expecting to brace itself for more challenges as the travel industry continues to be hard-hit by border closures. Hong Kong’s border has been all but closed since February 2020, and successive waves of infections have repeatedly delayed the launch of quarantine-free travel with mainland China and overseas countries. Last October, Disneyland raised its annual pass prices by up to 12 per cent. It has also implemented a number of cost-saving initiatives aimed at preserving jobs, such as imposing unpaid leave for more than 7,000 staff members and closing every Tuesday and Thursday since reopening in September 2020. Its similarly loss-making rival, Ocean Park, secured HK$6.8 billion in funding in March last year to stay afloat, but still plunged from a HK$1.92 billion surplus to a deficit of HK$31.8 million by the time its financial year ended on June 30, 2021. With the city having suspended plans for mass testing, Roundtable party lawmaker Michael Tien Puk-sun said he believed that coronavirus infections would continue to linger in Hong Kong, which could discourage mainland tourists. “If mainland visitors come down to Hong Kong and get infected, they would have a hard time getting back … eventually they would think it’s not worth it because they don’t trust how the [local] government is controlling the pandemic,” he said. “That has a direct bearing on Disneyland’s future for the rest of this year.”