Shanghai Disney Resort Groundbreaking Ceremony - April 8, 2011 (Photo : Getty Images)
With an entrance fee of $75, considered the lowest in all 12 Disney parks, it is small wonder that when operators of the Shanghai Disneyland began selling tickets on Monday for its opening day of June 16, its website crashed.
By 12:30 am on March 28 when Shanghai Disneyland started selling tickets online (www.shanghaidisneyresort.com) at 12:01 a.m., clicks reached 5 million, causing a temporary malfunction of its ticketing system due to the massive volume. But the website, as well as the distribution channels of its authorized partners, eventually functioned again.
According to Alitrip, the flagship store of Disney Resort, over 20,000 entrance tickets were sold within 30 minutes, while one-day ticket sales breached 35,000 and two-day tickets exceeded 12,000 by 4 p.m. that day, reported China Daily.
But it is not just in Shanghai Disneyland where the “kaching” of cash registers were ringing loudly. Despite the 1,650 yuan ($254) price of rooms at the Shanghai Disneyland Hotel and 850 yuan at the Toy Story Hotel, bookings were pouring in. Also selling briskly were the admission tickets for The Lion King which cost from 290 to 1,000 yuan.
Buyers of tickets were purchasing for more than just a day at the resort. They also booked rooms at the two hotels, brought tickets for the musical and admission tickets for several days.
While the June 16 opening day tickets are now fully sold out, tickets from June 17 to Sept. 30 are still on sale from 370 yuan ($57) for non-peak periods, to 499 yuan for peak periods. The latter are the first two weeks, summer months of July and August, and all weekends, reported Bloomberg.
Shanghai Disneyland is expected to receive about 27,000 visitors a day or about 10 million a year. Given these astounding numbers, Li Jin, analyst of Chang Jiang Securities, in a note on Monday, estimated the resort’s revenue to hits from 24 billion to 40 billion yuan a year. “Relying on the large desire for family-style entertainment and the rising purchasing power of Chinese consumers, Shanghai Disneyland is likely to set off massive consumer demand,” Li wrote.
