\chapter{What are the specific next steps}

Here are the plans of Disney  Co. at the beginig of the year for the next decade. Diney Corporation must extend
and break into a new market. Asia seems to be the ideal continent. There is so many new customers, it is the
perfect place.
In january, in some newspaper we can read the begining of the conquest.\\

Walt Disney CO. will break ground Sunday on a \$2.9 billion Hong Kong Disneyland, the first step
in the media company's push into china.
Disney is banking on record tourist arrivals in Hong Kong, wich returned to Chinese rule five years ago.
It is competing with Vivendi Universal SA, wich is planning parks in Shangai, for a slice of the Chinese market.
Tourism from China surged last year, when 6.1 million mainlanders visited the former British colony in the first
11 months, a gain of about 50 percent from a year earlier. That made China, the world's most populous country,
the city's biggest source of visitors, accounting for two-fifths of the total.
"This area of the World is possibly the most important growth area for Disney in the next few decades." said Jordan
Rohan, an analyst at SoundView Technology Group in Old Grenwich, Connecticut.\\
The entertainment company isn't limiting its China ambition to Hong Kong. It also plans a park in Shangai, to be built after
2010, giving Chinese visitors a choice of Disney destinations close to home. Disney said last month it has talks with Chinese
governement about the Shangai park. The company didn't strike a final agreement, said Irene Chan, a Hong Kong based Disney
spokeswoman. Disney invested 2.45 billion Hong Kong dollars (\$314 million) for a 43 percent stake in Hong Kong Internationnal
Theme Parks Ltd. The company convinced the Hong Kong government, wich holds a 57 percent stake, to pay for most of the rest.
The company says the Hong Kong park, a 126 hectare developpment on Lantau Island, will be a 10 minute railway from
the airport and half an hour from downtown. It targets 5.6 million visitors a year when it opens in 2006 and will
employ 18,000 people, according to Disney.\\
At Sunday's ground-breaking ceremony, Michael Eisner, Disney's chairman, and Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee
Hwa meet in a city that is counting on the project more than it did when it was announced in November 1999, at the
tail end of Asia's financial crisis.
"Disney is definitely positive for Hong Kong", said John Saunders, the head of regional property research at CLSA
Emerging Markets in Hong Kong. "Tourism and job creation are the two key and obvious ways that would contribute
to Hong Kong economy."
Burbank, California-based Disney needs to boost revenue after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks discouraged people
from travelling. Theme park revenue fell 8 percent in the year ended Sept. 30 on lower ticket sales and hotel
occupancy at Walt Disney World Resort, the Disneyland Resort and other U.S attractions.\\
Asia has been a bright spot : Oriental Land, wich opened Tokyo DisneySea in September 2001, reported net income more
than quadrupled to \$75.2 million in the six months to Sept. 30.
Rival Vivendi is also expanding into China. Along with two companies owned by the Shangai city government, it plans
to build a theme park in the city's Pudong district by 2006.
The company also aims to build China's second Universal park in Beijing before the 2008 Olympics, according to a
report in Thursday's Standard newspaper in Hong Kong, which cited a Chinese official. A Universal spokesman in Los Angeles,
Iris Gelt, declined to comment on the report.\\
Disney's Hong Kong park will have two hotels and a retail, dining and  entertainment complex on openning day. The
company aims to expand it to two theme parks, 5,800 hotel rooms and a 300,000 square-foot entertainment center.
"The Disney project will attract a lot of visitors." said Anthony Wu, head of property research at Lehman Brothers
in Hong Kong. "Mainland Chinesem and other tourists coming to Hong Kong, would definitely want to visit Disneyland."

Unfortunately, recent events bodes no good.