Hong Kong Disneyland tabs Thai market
Hong Kong Disneyland plans to attract more visitors from Thailand, using the Disneyland Paint the Night parade as a magnet to attract Thais who like to take photos and share them on social media.
Daisy Sit, marketing director at Hong Kong Disneyland, said Bangkokians recently made the highest check-in at its theme park via Facebook.
Moreover, Thais like to take photos and share them with friends on social networks and do so more than other Asians.
The operator of Hong Kong Disneyland will promote among Thais in hopes they will help to create travel demand among friends when they see pictures of the parade on Facebook and Instagram.
The Hong Kong Disneyland Resort is home to Hong Kong Disneyland Park and two Disney hotels has been running 92-94% this year.
A third hotel, with 750 rooms, will be built soon with a budget of HK$4.26 billion (17.9 billion baht) and is due to open in 2017.
“Expanding to the Southeast Asian market is one of our key business strategies for growing the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort in the long run. Thailand is one of our core markets, as we’ve promising growth of Thai Attendance over the past few years,” Ms Sit said.
About 75% of first-time Thai visitors preferred to visit the theme park because it was a top-three tourism destination in Hong Kong along with Victoria Peak and the Big Buddha.
Last year, Hong Kong Disneyland Resort achieved record-breaking attendance of 7.4 million guests, of whom 20% were international tourists.
During the first half of this year, Thai tourist number in Hong Kong fell by 508% year-on-year to250,756. The demonstrations that began last month have affected tourism sentiment but only slightly hurt Disney’s business, Ms Sit said.