Northstar

Chat with Terruce Wang Terruce Wang, vice-president, Sales and Distribution Marketing, Hong Kong Disneyland Resort He oversees the sales and distribution marketing of Hong Kong Disneyland Resort, including the latest addition, Grizzly Gulch, which is the largest in area, for a themed land, in the Resort’s current expansion. We chatted with Terruce Wang to find out his strategies and challenges faced to promote the theme park. What are the operating hours like for Grizzly Gulch? Grizzly Gulch shares the same opening hours as the Park. The day is longer during the summer so we launch the fireworks when the sky grows dark at 9pm, while we do so earlier during winter. The opening hours remain the same. Grizzly Gulch is not very popular as compared to Toy Story Land and other Disney characters. Did you face any challenges trying to promote and market this new product? As you mentioned, Toy Story Land enjoys a high affinity in this region, which makes promotion easier. But Grizzly Gulch is very unique to us, with its world exclusivity for at least five years. There is a lot of discussion about it on the internet already. As you know, Disney always has a lot of fans. So if you go to our Facebook page, you can see there is already a lot of discussion about Grizzly Gulch. Even though Disney fans cannot experience such an attraction in other Disney parks, we have generated a very good buzz. We have been doing a lot of segmentation. For example, in the Taiwanese market, if you take a look at our co-op advertising efforts, we are using Toy Story Land plus Grizzly Gulch as key visuals. Is the current market still dominated by young adults? Families have always been our main source of customers, and we have done a very good job catering to their needs. We are one of the must-visit destinations in Hong Kong and almost 80 to 90 per cent of visitors with children will pay a visit to HKDL. If we want to expand faster than organic growth, we have to target the younger demographic. We will be able to manage this sector of customers, especially with the increasing number of themed lands and steady ticket price, people will perceive it as a bargain to pay the same price for access to more fun attractions and rides. We might not have been able to attract a lot of young adults in the past, but we know we have adopted the right strategy, as indicated by the higher growth rates. What about these young guests – they may not want to come to Hong Kong just to visit the Disneyland. They may perhaps, want to visit other attractions as well during their stay here. Is there any plan to collaborate with other Hong Kong tourism resources to offer travel packages that appeal to them? We often collaborate with travel agencies and airlines to offer pre-arrival sales. As you said, Hong Kong has many other attractions, and we could lose an individual guest when the weather gets bad or when there is insufficient time. Yet if they bought tickets before their trips, the chances of them visiting the park are greatly increased. To target travellers who did not purchase park tickets before arriving in Hong Kong, we have set up ticket-selling locations at various Hong Kong tourist attractions, where lots of tourists will visit. For example, tickets are available at Avenue of Stars, earlier at the Peak, last winter at Harbour City and this year at Kowloon Bay’s shopping mall, MegaBox. In addition, we are partners with quite a number of hotels in Hong Kong. There are two types of partnership; guests can apply for tours at the Tour Desk where ‘One Day Tour’ is available and at Travelex currency exchange store. Guests can buy tickets at the concierges of 50 to 60 hotels in Hong Kong. Therefore, we are taking every opportunity to reach out to guests after they arrive in Hong Kong. We have also established a Lantau Island Alliance. We have partnered with Ngong Ping 360 and Hong Kong International Airport to launch some promotional packages. What will the increase in number of mainland guests be following the opening of the new themed land? We usually do not make projections. Since the opening of Toy Story Land last year, we have experienced double-digit growth in the past six months. Therefore, if we adopt the same approach to Grizzly Gulch, we believe that the growth will be quite positive. Apart from what was mentioned earlier, have you noticed any other market trends? In the past, 70 per cent of guests in the park were travelling in group tours. Now, more guests are travelling as individual travellers. Following this market trend closely, we are reaching out to consumers via various channels such as offering group purchases online. The park will continue to leverage the development of technology to enhance our product strategy. We are now thinking of offering online training courses to encourage trade partners to learn more about Hong Kong Disneyland.

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