The Paper reporter Tang Yingying

In the past two months, many places have rushed to the hot search due to news related to Disney.

On June 6, according to Qingdao News Network, in the afternoon of the same day, Pan Feng, secretary of the party group and director of Qingdao Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, responded to the topic of online rumors that Disney wants to build a third Disney resort in China and is expected to settle in Qingdao in the "Minsheng Online" online chat live broadcast room, saying that Qingdao Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism has always attached great importance to the investment and construction of theme park projects, and has conducted many docking with Disney companies this year on the introduction of Disney projects. At present, there are no plans for Disney to settle in Qingdao and invest in the project.

Previously, news related to Disney was also reported in Wuhan, Tianjin, Chengdu and other places.

On June 6, Hubei released a WeChat message pushed on the morning of the same day, showing that some netizens asked the relevant departments of Wuhan whether they could introduce Disneyland, and the investment promotion department of Wuhan Caidian District Bureau of Commerce replied: "At present, Disney projects are approached by higher departments, and the Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Commerce has just launched preliminary negotiations with Disney to promote the intention of project settlement..."

However, after the news spread widely, Hubei released the relevant news. In response to the news, Murray King, vice president of public affairs and communications at Shanghai Disney Resort, replied on behalf of Disney that it was fake news.

Earlier, in April and May, news such as "DisneySea Land settled in Tianjin" and "Chengdu Longquanyi District will welcome Disneyland to settle" were spread on the Internet, and were successively "debunked". (For details, see the previous report of The Paper: https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_4)

On May 5 this year, The Paper asked Disney's parent company whether Disney has the intention or plan to build a third theme park in China, and as of press time, Disney has not replied.

Will China build a third Disneyland?

Why is there always news that China is building a third Disney?

Lin Huanjie, president of the China Theme Park Research Institute, said in an interview with The Paper that Disney's "fame" is too great. Lin Huanjie pointed out that from the perspective of tourists, the three words "Disney" are the loudest brands of the world's theme parks; From the perspective of urban development, if there is a Disneyland somewhere, the local economy, entertainment, transportation, catering, hotels, etc. will be very much and very large.

On the other hand, Lin pointed out that there may be a "race for traffic" in some places, when in fact the rumors or the people who create the information do not know anything about Disney. "Disney's philosophy is that this product is very precious and scarce to remain permanent. Disney will be based on the number of local visitors and market acceptance and competition in the country or region. ”

According to public information, up to now, Disney has only deployed Disney theme parks in 6 cities around the world, namely California (USA), Florida (USA), Tokyo (Japan), Paris (France), Hong Kong (China) and Shanghai (China). Among them, Shanghai Disneyland, which opened in 2016, is the world's "newest" Disney theme park.

Therefore, Lin Huanjie believes that the probability of China building a third Disney theme park is not great.

"If Disney builds another theme park in China, it will compete with itself." Lin Huanjie pointed out, "So Disney will not build a third theme park in China, but will continue to expand in Pudong, and add good projects and new projects." ”

Zhu Yu, director of Fitch Ratings China Enterprise Research, pointed out in an interview with The Paper that a theme park of Disneyland's size attracts tourists from all over the country rather than a regional one, and there is no need to open many parks. In addition, Shanghai Disneyland is also continuing to expand, and Universal Studios Beijing has also planned the second and third phases, which can meet the increasing demand.

It is worth mentioning that the surging news reporter inquired and found that the latest document on the determination of the scale of theme parks is the "Guiding Opinions on Regulating the Construction and Development of Theme Parks" issued by the official website of the National Development and Reform Commission on March 2018, 3, which clearly divides theme parks into three levels: extra-large, large, medium and small, of which the total area of 9,2000 mu and above or the total investment of 50 billion yuan and above is a super-large theme park.

According to public information, as of the opening, the total investment amount of Shanghai Disney Resort is about 340 billion yuan; The Universal Studios project in Beijing has a total investment of more than 200 billion yuan, and all of them are super-large theme parks.

The "Guiding Opinions on Regulating the Construction and Development of Theme Parks" also mentions: "Strictly control the construction and expansion of extra-large theme parks, and the provincial government shall conduct scientific demonstration of the construction of extra-large theme park projects in the region, and the projects that have not been demonstrated by the provincial government shall not be submitted to the State Council for approval." ”

Why is Disneyland so popular?

According to the latest report released by the International Themed Entertainment Association (Themed Entertainment Association) and infrastructure consulting company AECOM, the 2021 Theme Index and Museum Index, among the top 2021 theme parks in the world in 2021, In addition to Universal Studios Japan, which ranked 25th, and Chimelong Ocean Kingdom, which ranked 10th, the other 5 are all "Disney productions".

Disney's Magic Kingdom in Florida, Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea in California are among the top 4.

In terms of visitor volume, Disney's Magic Kingdom in Florida, USA, received 2021.1269 million visitors in 1 and 2019.2096 million in 3 before the pandemic, far ahead of other theme parks around the world.

According to Fitch China Theme Park Industry Blue Book released in April this year, Disney ranked first with 4.2019 billion visitors in 2019 to the world's theme park groups. In second place were the resorts of the Merlin Group and Legoland in the United Kingdom, with about 15 million visitors, less than half the number of visitors to Disney.

Disney's "veteran fan" Candy goes to Shanghai Disneyland about 10 times a year. Candy said that she likes to buy accessories, and the reason she likes Disney the most is that the peripherals are cute. A few years ago, in order to buy merchandise discounts, Candy also applied for an annual pass for Shanghai Disneyland.

Daddy Shawn believes that among all theme parks, Disneyland is the best combination of project design and super IP. "For example, Shanghai Disneyland's Dwarf MineCart and TRON Speed Light Wheel not only have IP background blessings, but also exciting and novel gameplay. If you only build a roller coaster, it will not be able to achieve this immersive play experience if it is old and exciting without the blessing of IP. ”

Due to work reasons, I can't go often, but I have been thinking about Disney's "post-90s" fan Reimaru, also said that Disney's IP characteristics and the theme characteristics of the entire park are very distinct, and the cultural genes are very prominent. "These IPs still grow up with us, and they are in line with Disney's fantasy fairy tales." Reimaru said, "For example, Disney's float parade, every piece of music is a memory, and it is a collection of fairy tales that are familiar to both Chinese and foreign countries. ”

Is China short of large theme parks?

In fact, from the aforementioned global theme park report, in addition to Disneyland, Chinese mainland theme parks are not inferior.

According to the 2021 Global Theme Parks and Museums Report, Chimelong Ocean Kingdom ranked 8th, higher than Shanghai Disneyland in 10th place. Chimelong Ocean Kingdom received 2019.1173 million visitors in 6, surpassing Shanghai Disneyland's 1121.1 million visitors. In addition, Beijing Happy Valley and Guangzhou Chimelong Paradise also made the list, ranking 24th and 25th.

According to the theme park blue book released by Fitch Ratings, in terms of the number of visitors to the parks of major theme park groups around the world in 2019, OCT Group, the parent company of Happy Valley, ranked third, and its theme parks had about 3 million visitors in 2019; Huaqiang Fantawild ranked 5400th, and its theme parks had about 5 million visitors in 2019; Chimelong Group ranked 5000th, with approximately 6 million visitors to its theme parks in 2019.

However, in Lin Huanjie's view, there are more than 100 theme parks in the country, and there is no shortage of large-scale theme parks, but the construction space of theme parks is still "quite large".

In an interview with The Paper, Zhu Yu mentioned that at present, China's theme parks are dominated by domestic chain theme park operators, and the number of foreign theme parks in China is very small. However, the homogenization of domestic theme parks is serious, and there is a big gap between them and well-known foreign theme parks in terms of scale, facilities, technology and admission experience.

Zhu Yu pointed out that high-quality theme parks with distinct themes are scarce.

"China's theme park industry is still in the early stage of development, and the homogenization is serious. Before 2018, more than half of theme parks did not have a clear theme. Although the development of theme parks in recent years has paid more attention to themes and characteristics, a large proportion of theme parks are still not competitive. Even the nationally famous Happy Valley series parks are mainly amusement facilities, and there is a big gap with well-known foreign theme parks in terms of theme, IP and technology. ”

Zhu Yu mentioned that the main reason for this phenomenon is that the domestic theme park investment scale is small. "Before 2018, nearly half of the theme park investment scale was less than 10 billion yuan. Large-scale theme parks with an investment of RMB 20 billion account for only 22%, of which there are only a few mega theme parks with an investment of RMB 50 billion. Zhu Yu pointed out: "Compared with the investment of more than <> billion yuan by Disney and Universal Studios, the scale is still far from the scale." This leads to a big gap in the implementation of the park and the experience in the park. This also explains why today, when people's income levels continue to increase and the demand for entertainment consumption continues to increase, international large-scale theme parks, especially Disney and Universal Studios, are popular in China. This type of theme park attracts tourists from all over the country, and is currently only available in Beijing and Shanghai, which has led other first- and second-tier cities to want to introduce similar theme parks. ”

"The main battlefield of the Futurama theme park is in China"

The arrival of internationally popular theme parks such as Disney and Universal Studios has also driven the development of domestic theme parks.

Lin Huanjie pointed out that after Disney entered China, domestic theme parks and investors believed that if the quality was not improved, it would be quickly eliminated.

"So the previous Chinese theme parks with relatively poor quality and lower level should go through an elimination." Those with poor regional locations, inadequate construction management, and no ability to update and iterate will soon be eliminated. Lin Huanjie believes that high-quality theme parks with more IP experience will also emerge.

In Lin Huanjie's view, compared with Disney, China's theme parks are "they are doing boutiques, and we are still only doing projects." For example, Disney's Avatar project in Orlando, USA, USA, Cameron took a full 7 years from receiving Disney's task to landing. ”

The Avatar project is just an expanded campus.

Looking back in history, we can see that Shanghai Disney Resort's settlement in Shanghai took 16 years from project negotiation to opening.

According to the Pudong Times, negotiations for Disney's project to settle in Pudong began as early as 2000. It is understood that the project has gone through more than 10,1200 difficult negotiations for more than 2009 years. On November 11, 4, when the Information Office of the Shanghai Municipal People's Government authorized the announcement that the Shanghai Disney project application report had been approved by the relevant state authorities, the negotiations were still pending. It was not until November 2010, 11 that Shanghai Shendi (Group) Co., Ltd. and Disney Company formally signed a cooperation agreement in Shanghai. In 5, Shanghai Disney Resort broke ground; Above-ground construction started in 2011; The park officially opened on June 2013, 2016.

Lin Huanjie pointed out that a good large-scale theme park must be scientific, reasonable and close to the market. In the planning of theme parks, Disney tends to be more humanized, commercialized and rationalized.

However, Lin Huanjie said that China's theme parks have made particularly rapid progress in recent years. Among them, Huaqiang Fantawild is currently a better enterprise in China. Lin Huanjie believes that the main battlefield of the world's theme parks in the next few years is in China, which will also promote the continuous improvement of the development quality of China's theme park industry.