第六週-上海迪士尼

Shanghai Disney opens next week, and it's working hard to avoid cultural faux pas

Even before Walt Disney Co. opened Euro Disneyland outside Paris in 1992, French intellectuals called the park a “cultural Chernobyl,” workers protested the Disney dress code and neighbors complained that the park’s train whistles provoked their dogs to bark and geese to honk.

But Paris came to embrace its new neighbor and now the park attracts 10.4 million people a year, more than the number of visitors to the Louvre museum or the Eiffel Tower.

On June 16, Disney will open its biggest and most expensive international resort — a nearly 1,000-acre, $5.5-billion development in Shanghai — and company executives know the challenges of trying to take the Disney magic abroad. An opening-day misstep or cultural faux pas at the Shanghai Disney resort could dent Disney’s hugely popular brand.

But if the risks are high, so are the rewards.

If it proves a hit, Shanghai Disney will add momentum to the Burbank entertainment giant’s efforts to turn China’s 1.4 billion citizens into more voracious consumers of Mouse House merchandise and films.

Food prices at Shanghai Disneyland give early visitors heartburn

Disney’s target is the country’s upper middle class, which is forecast to double to 100 million by 2020, according to the Boston Consulting Group. The Chinese tourism industry represents $610 billion in spending in China and abroad, and the Chinese government predicts that it also will double by 2020.

“The sheer numbers in the Chinese economy are staggering,” said theme park expert Martin Lewison, a business management professor at Farmingdale State College in New York. “It’s a massive country with hundreds of millions of new customers.”

Customers like Han Li, a data analyst, and her husband, Yu Lei, a bank worker, both 32. The couple, who have been to all five of Disney’s resorts, plan to attend the grand opening in Shanghai and stay five days.

“It’s not that we don’t have other travel plans,” Han said, “but other plans need to give way to Disney plans.” 

The joint venture behind Shanghai Disney — Disney holds a 43% stake and the state-owned Shanghai Shendi Group owns the rest — insists that it is well prepared for the grand opening of the Shanghai Resort, which is nearly twice the size of the Anaheim Resort (which includes Disneyland and California Adventure, three hotels and the Downtown Disney shopping, dining and entertainment complex).

Over the last month, Shanghai Disney held previews to work out the kinks, with some 1 million people visiting the park’s six themed lands encircling the Enchanted Storybook Castle, a shopping district and 99 acres of gardens, lakes and parkland.

Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger promised last year during a promotional campaign that the resort would be “authentically Disney and distinctly Chinese.” The company hired Chinese architects and designers and sent teams around China researching ways to incorporate Chinese cultural elements.

“I think that will make a big difference,” said Marty Sklar, former vice chairman and principal creative executive for Disney’s Imagineering team during Euro Disneyland construction. “They are trying to become part of the culture instead of trying to interpret the culture,” said Sklar, who retired from Disney in 2009.

For example, Main Street U.S.A. has been ditched in favor of a large garden featuring Disney versions of the Chinese zodiac animals and a Mickey Avenue that will help familiarize Disney newbies with some of the company’s classic characters. Designers have added more seating at restaurants after finding that Chinese guests linger longer over meals, and incorporated more live entertainment after realizing that many Chinese patrons like those shows as well — or better — than adrenaline-inducing rides.

Among the other innovations and adaptations slated for the resort in the world’s most populous country are rigid barriers to encourage more orderly queuing, wider thoroughfares than in other Disney parks and extensive picnic areas to appeal to extended families with grandparents in tow. There’s also a mobile phone app that delivers updates on wait times and can warn prospective guests to stay away if the park is at capacity. 

Disney faces steep competition in China, where as many as 60 theme parks are under construction or being planned, including projects by Universal Parks & Resorts, Six Flags Entertainment and Dalian Wanda Group, one of China’s biggest conglomerates.

來源:http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-disney-shanghai-culture-adv-snap-story.html

What:Shanghai Disney opens next week, and it's working hard to avoid cultural faux pas

Where:China

Who:Disney

Why:not even

When: in 1992

How:not even

Keywords:

1. intellectuals 知識分子
2. provoked 挑釁
3. development發展
4. executives高管
5. misstep 失步
6. momentum動量
7. entertainment娛樂
8. voracious貪婪
9. upper上
10.  forecast 預測