Shanghai (AFP)

The mouse is back in service: Disneyland Park in Shanghai reopened its doors to the public on Monday, illustrating the gradual return of China to normal despite the ever-present threat of the coronavirus.

The amusement park located in the largest city in China is the first Disney site in the world to welcome visitors again since the beginning of the epidemic which cost the American entertainment group very dearly.

The contagion has slowed considerably in China in recent weeks and the country has started to reopen some tourist sites like the Great Wall and the Forbidden City in Beijing.

The recovery is also only gradual: the park plans to welcome a maximum of 24,000 people a day within a few weeks, instead of 80,000 usually, after compulsory booking on the internet.

Speakers remind customers to keep their distance from queues and different attractions.

On the ground, yellow lines indicate the minimum distance to be respected between people.

The park has promised to increase the frequency of disinfection sessions and to limit, if not cancel, interactions between the public and characters like Mickey and Donald.

Despite fears, tickets for this first day sold out in a few minutes on Friday as soon as the online counter reopened, according to local press.

"Even though many attractions remain closed, we are very impatient," said a visitor at the entrance to the park, accompanied by a five-year-old girl.

"We spent two months locked up, it was deadly boredom," she adds.

- An epidemic at 1.4 billion -

The pandemic appeared in late 2019 in the city of Wuhan (center) before spreading to the rest of China and then around the world. With drastic containment measures, China has seen its case numbers drop steadily since March and the country has had no more deaths since mid-April.

But the number of contaminations has suddenly resumed the path of increase in the past few days, especially in Wuhan, where the contagion had yet stopped for a month.

The reopening of the Shanghai park is in any case good news for the Walt Disney group, battered on Wall Street in recent months.

The entertainment empire estimates at 1.4 billion dollars the negative impact of the health and economic crisis on its activities, including a billion linked to amusement parks and cruises alone.

"We are facing general disruptions," admitted Bob Chapek, the group's boss, last week, presenting the financial results for the first quarter (91% drop in net profit to $ 475 million).

Disney executives don't know when they can reopen other parks, merchandise stores and other tourism spots, from cruises to resorts.

They also had to postpone the release dates of highly anticipated films, like Mulan (Disney), Black Widow (Marvel) or Soul (Pixar).

Disney can however rejoice in the success of Disney +, its streaming platform launched in the fall in North America and Australia, then deployed in several European countries in March.

Disney closed its Shanghai park at the end of January, before doing the same with its facilities in the United States, France, Japan and Hong Kong.

In Shanghai, the group had reopened in March the commercial area surrounding the park, as well as a hotel, but the leisure park proper remained closed until Monday.

© 2020 AFP