With Hong Kong Disneyland set to open on 12 September and Universal Studio in talks with Malaysian leisure group Genting International to develop a park on Sentosa Island, off Singapore, Asia is obviously the new target for theme park operators. Disney’s $3.6bn Hong Kong park, its second in Asia after Tokyo, is expected to attract 5.6m visitors in its first year and about 10m thereafter, with two-thirds arriving from mainland China and south-east Asia. Disney is also keen to open a park on the mainland, to make way for Disney’s other branded products. “Hong Kong Disneyland is a real beachhead for the Disney brand in China,” says Jay Rasulo, president of Walt Disney Parks. The company has taken the past two years “to really educate the market on Disney stories,” working with the China Youth League, which has 70m members under the age of 14. Meanwhile, Rasulo observes: “There has to be a reasonably sizeable middle class or an economy that is developed enough to have leisure spending by a significant number of people. The market needs to be accessible, which means – even in a big country such as India or China – you have to have reasonable infrastructure.”