Disney in China

It has been another interesting week for the Disney Company on many fronts. Recent positive press shows that Mickey and crew are:

• The number 1 website in unique visitors in the ‘Kids Entrainment’ and ‘Family Community’ categories with a running average of over 28 million unique visitors a month last year
• Disney is set to launch their latest new enterprise aimed at the lost Disney demographic, young boys 6-14, with “Aaron Stone”.
• This weekend according the Jim Hill should also be a very busy one for the parks in Florida at a minimum, and probably good for the SoCal parks as well, with attendance swelling to a much more pre-recession type level.
• And of course Wall*E won a Golden Globe

The stranger thing to me this week though is the doings in Shanghai, with multiple announcements here, there and frankly everywhere. Disney saying basically what everybody knows in ‘Yeah, we are working on something, but a long way to go.’ The Chinese Ministry on the other hand is saying, ‘Nope, no deal here.’ And yet the Mayor saying, ‘No, we’ve reached a deal.’

Kinda reminds me of the old Abbott and Costello shtick for ‘Who’s on First’.

I think the most interesting, and probably poignant quote in the ‘Window of China’ article (that’s the last link in the above paragraph) is: ‘He said the government has been in talks with Disney for more than ten years . . .’

I’ve done some business in the Far East, and that little comment goes to show you just how LONG it can take to consummate a deal in places like China. They have a much longer timeframe than you or I do when it comes to just about anything, and business especially. It takes a long term RELATIONSHIP with the companies and peoples in China, and 10 years is probably a minimum down payment.

That said, I think we all know that the park will probably be built at some point. My bet is the 2014 is more of a target and not a hard and fast bet at this point though, and that the park in question will be much like Hong Kong and other recent Disney parks in being a ‘half day’ park to start with, with a longish ramp-up to a moderate size build out.

I’ve got some other thoughts on the upcoming Busch Entertainment deal as well, but I’ll save those for another post.