Wang Jianlin (Photo : Dalian Wanda Group)
With barely three weeks to its formal opening, all roads lead to Shanghai Disneyland. Millions of Chinese would want to experience being on the happiest place on earth.
However, there is one Chinese who is not that positive when it comes to the formal opening of the resort on June 16. It’s not he does not have money to buy the 499-yuan ticket or he can no longer buy tickets for the first two weeks of Shanghai Disneyland’s opening.
Rather, Wang Jianlin, founder of the Dalian Wanda Group and the richest man in China, believes his competitor would become unprofitable within the next 10 to 20 years. He spoke against Disney’s one-time $5.5-billion investment in Shanghai Disneyland in an interview on Sunday with CCTV.
“The frenzy of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and the era of blindly following them have passed. [They are] entirely cloning previous IP, cloning previous products, with no more innovation,” Fortune quotes Wang.
He added, “Disney didn’t believe that China has Wanda … They shouldn’t have entered China.” Wang compares the Shanghai Disneyland to a tiger which he said could not win a fight with a pack of wolves. He was referring to 15 to 20 Wanda theme parks that his company would build and open across China.
Wanda would open this weekend its first theme park in Nanchang City. By 2020, Wanda projects it would have 200 million tourists and earn $15.5 billion tourism revenue from its new amusement parks. In contrast, Shanghai Disneyland expects 10 million visitors yearly.
Disney’s spokeswoman declined to comment on Wang’s statements. She said it is "not worthy of response" and added that Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Disney CEO in Beijing in early May, reported ABC.
