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On January 24th, Shanghai Disney Resort announced it would shut its doors because of the coronavirus outbreak and “continue to carefully monitor the situation and be in close contact with the local government.” Hong Kong Disneyland followed suit soon after. It has been two weeks and there is still no sign of either theme park opening again.
The closure occurred right before the Lunar New Year holiday, which brought so many visitors to Shanghai Disneyland in 2018 that the park had to stop selling tickets. While the financial impact to The Walt Disney Company is still unclear, on a call to investors on Tuesday, executives said that a two-month closure of both parks could cost Disney $175 million in revenues.
California’s Disneyland Resort (like other tourist attractions) is also affected by the outbreak. Los Angeles is the most popular American destination for Chinese tourists. Before the outbreak led to the cancellation of many flights and worries about quarantines, there were 149 nonstop flights to California from China each week. In 2019, Chinese visitors spent over $4 billion in California.
- The Executive Creative Producer of Tomorrowland at Shanghai Disneyland was interviewed on the China Life podcast about her time in the country.
- US-China Today looked into the poor performance of Hong Kong Disneyland back in 2008.
- Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger talked about the company's three key priorities at the 2015 USC Global Conference.
