Wanda chair Wang Jianlin has taken aim at Disney, telling the company that “one tiger is no match for a pack of wolves” as Disney prepares to launch its first resort in China next month.
Making the comments during an appearance on China Central Television, multi-billionaire Wang escalated the rivalry between Wanda and Disney, as he aims to make his company the most powerful tourism entity in the world.
Wanda, which mainly operates in China and parts of Asia, has assets worth an estimated CN¥634bn (US$97bn, €86.5bn, £66.5bn) with revenues of CN¥290bn (US$44bn, €40bn, £30.5bn) in 2015. By contrast, Disney revenues for 2015 grew to CN¥344bn (US$52.5bn, €47bn, £36bn).
The US$5.5bn (€5bn, £3.8bn) Disneyland Shanghai theme park and resort – the largest foreign investment ever made by Disney – will feature its highest castle, two hotels and six themed lands: Adventure Isle, Gardens of Imagination, Mickey Avenue, Tomorrowland, Treasure Cove and Fantasyland.
Disney CEO Bob Iger
recently said that the company was confident ahead of the launch of the park, praising growth in the Chinese theme park market, but Wang disagreed with his assessment.
“Over the next 10 to 20 years, Wanda must make Disney unprofitable,” said Wang. “Every park of ours has its own business model, with constant innovation while combining indoor and outdoor activities. I think that Disney’s prospects in China, at least financially, don’t look good to me.”
Wang had previously made his intentions towards Disney known,
promising to surpass it as the world’s largest tourism enterprise by 2020, aiming to welcome more than 200 million people and earn annual tourism income in excess of CN¥100bn (US$16.1bn, €14.6bn, £10.3bn) with its ‘Wanda City’ plan.
Each city is being built on a grand scale, with the entire endeavour being an indoor project, designed to operate all-year-round. Future plans include opening in excess of 15 Wanda cities in China alone, each with projected visitor numbers of more than 10 million, while larger branches within certain cities will be able to accommodate 30 million annually.
Among examples of Wanda cities are the
US$1bn (€839m, £659m) movie park in the Chinese city of Wuhan, which opened in January 2015,
the multi-billion dollar Wanda Hefei, set to open in July 2016, and the
US$8.2bn (£5.1bn, €6bn) mega-complex in the eastern port city of Qingdao.
In addition to the ambitious domestic plans, Wanda has also begun acquisitions of travel enterprises and tourism spots in an effort to build up major tourism hubs abroad, most notably in Australia, where Wang is planning a
multi-billion dollar Gold Coast theme park based on the Jurassic World franchise.
