Or perhaps Disneyland’s coming to us. During a radio interview today, outgoing Seoul mayor and big-time presidential contender Lee Myung-bak said negotiations were underway with Disney to build a Disneyland in or around Seoul, and that it might be possible to start work on the theme park after a year. He also noted that he couldn’t reveal what was being discussed due to an agreement with Disney.
Another Seoul official said that while he couldn’t make any announcements, he understood that Disney’s business model, taking into consideration the Korean Wave and other characteristics of the Korean market, would include potential demand from Southeast Asian tourists as well.
13 Comments
Old news. Korean politicians have been dropping Disney’s name for years.
http://english.chosun.com/w21d.....70031.html
But from what I can tell, the MGM theme park in Busan might actually be pretty good… Not to mention might actually be built.
Yeah! A Korean speaking Mickey Mouse! I hope Minnie Mouse is a hottie.
–Remort
GOT to be another financial fiasco in the making…
Disney… coming… here?!
Oh, my God! It’s my worst nightmare coming true…
The Mouse is chasing after me again!
That murine beast just won’t relent!
basically a demonstration haven once something happens
koreans will join in unity to boycott disney in favor of everland
disney gets no business except for foreign tourists and closes shop due to nationalism
Mine too. Disney, Inc. is as vile an American corporation as one could get short of having mafia connections. The luster is definitely off the Disney ™ image.
Does Korea really need this corporation crap passed off as a good idea by a presidential wanna-be!?
Good. Having a disneyland in or near Seoul makes far more sense than having it in Hong Kong.
Why I am I pretty sure the negoitations ammount to Seoul talking and Disney being polite to keep all options open. Six reasons why this will not happen:
- Land Prices in the Seoul Area are way too high. Further with the possible exception of Song-do, there is no custom created space for Disney which would fit the development pattern for Disney since every park since Orlando had a custom built space.
- Because of land prices being too high, Disney cannot build and flip cheap property as they have done in Orlando and Paris. This places the burden of the sucess of the park on the core resort operations (Hotels, Gate Admission, etc.)
- Figures for Disney’s last two expansions, Paris and Hong Kong, have been disapointing (granted HK is still rather new). This tempers any throught of more expansion.
- Korea is not a big tourist destination now, this makes not only the avalible tourist pool small but also makes any “sale” of a visit not simply a sale of the theme park but also a sale of the destination.
- The biggest possible market for any Disneyland Seoul/Korea is the China. Why not then just build in China? Its closer to Disney’s target, land is cheaper, labor is cheaper, and if Koreans want to go it will be easy for them to get where ever since they are in the “hub of asia”.
- From Disney’s persepective the overhead costs to build a park are the same no matter in Florida, Seoul, or Shanghai. So much like the above, why not just build in China?
Uh…doesn’t anyone remembr Tokyo Disneyland? Who needs another one less than an hour away by plane, in a country with dismal tourist attractions? Anyway, Disney is an evil, union-busting corporation, and there’s already a Goofy in the Blue House.
What Haisan and Dram-Man said. I’ve been hearing about this for at least 7 years, and have even been approached about it by various of the would-be local
fixers“promoters”. They are all drunk on their own greed in the way that only Koreans can be. Note, too, that the so-called MGM theme park in Busan is “MGM” in name only. The entire planning and funding (which still remains to be seen) is a purely Korean initiative. The MGM representative took great pains when the Memorandum of Unbeleivability was signed to make it clear that MGM was not investing a dime and wouldn’t even be involved in operations, but was sinply licensing its name, characters and related IP. It ain’t gonna happen.Disney is an evil union-busting corporation? What Korea needs is some companies who aren’t held hostage by unions. I don’t know how Disney operates but I’m certainly not against them just because they are large, multinational and foreign.
Snow, agreed, but we’re talking about very different union cultures in the U.S. and Korea. The latter could use some busting.
Koreans already have Everland, a direct ripoff of Dizzyland, so like most people here I’d expect the uri nara factor to kill business if it opened.
i’ve been watching this development for two years now. as others have noted, this has been on the table for a long time and rumors had it that disneyland was supposed to begin construction in 2005 but obviously never did.
i am very curious what the feasibility study for this project looks like. i don’t at all see how it can be profitable.
all i have to say is that i won’t believe it until it’s physically here in korea and open and running and making a profit.
as for the MGM deal in busan, while it is true that it is simply using the name (which btw is VERY common here) it does look to me that the project will actually go through.
the only reason i believe the MGM deal will succeed is because it is not going at it alone. in other words, it is not a pioneer. obviously there are other founding establishments in the area which have attracted initiatives like the MGM project to busan and had they not already been invovled, the MGM deal surely would not look as promising as it does.