Disney fans petition for Disneyland in Australia

[gavinfulikes]

According to Blooloop.com, Disney fans are petitioning to the Walt Disney company for there to be a Disneyland in Australia. Do you think this petition will succeed? Or will it been ignored?

[Brad2912]

There is zero financial sense for Disney in opening a park here. We won’t have the population, nor the international tourist numbers, to make it viable let alone profitable. 
 

[themagician]

And if we did get one, it would be at the scale (if not smaller) than the Hong Kong one. And people here would not be impressed by a ‘small’ Disney park. Especially when the general public only ever see the American ones in the spot light 

[rappa]

Every single person who signs that petition is an idiot. 

[HyprCoastr19]

I'd rather have a six flags or Universal Studios.

[Jdude95]

Disney have tried multiple times. Even if Australia wasn't an island in the middle of nowhere, the government aren't willing to throw "Disney money" around. Do remember Disney parks are generally 50/50 funded by the government during startup.

[AheadMatthewawsome]

It almost happened. In the 1990's, everything had all been planned, the state and federal governments had funding for it. And it fell at the last hurdle when Michael said "No, I want to go to China". And that was it. If you want to find out more, ReviewTyme made an great interesting video about Disneyland Down Under.
 

 

Edited September 5, 2020 by rappa
Fixed the video link

[rappa]

These parks have a draw of hundreds of millions of people in their market. And they STILL have to charge hundreds of Australian dollars for a single ticket. 
It’s not uncommon for a single attraction to cost 300 million Australian dollars.
 

———————————————————————

Let that sink it, that’s well well over a million dollars from EVERY SINGLE AUSTRALIAN that would be needed to pay for one attraction.

^just ignore that bit as I’m on crack clearly
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It’s so hilarious to keep seeing these sorts of things pop up. Meanwhile people complain when Gold Coast parks put up their price by $20 for a yearly pass 😂

Edited September 6, 2020 by rappa

[Baconjack]

I mean it almost happened before Eisner stepped in and decided Hong Kong was the better investment.

I may have a low opinion of Eisner and even with HKDL failing in the early days I think he made the right judgement in this case. It was the early 90’s, Euro Disney had failed and Disney had to play it safe with their park projects. China was a much safer pick for a new build park over Australia. 

[Brad2912]

6 minutes ago, Baconjack said:

China was a much safer pick for a new build park over Australia. 

Having a population of 1 billion people vs 25 million certainly helps... as does being surrounded by other populous nations that don’t require long haul flights to reach you 

[webslave]

It does beg the question though, although Disneyland is just not viable on Australian shores - is there actually a fit for a Disney outpost in Australia that does fit the market?

[Jdude95]

4 minutes ago, webslave said:

It does beg the question though, although Disneyland is just not viable on Australian shores - is there actually a fit for a Disney outpost in Australia that does fit the market?

It would be a much smaller project. Something like Disney Wharf that was once planned. Somewhere Disney owned that can be a gateway experience before boarding for a bigger Disney adventure

[webslave]

2 minutes ago, Jdude95 said:

It would be a much smaller project. Something like Disney Wharf that was once planned. Somewhere Disney owned that can be a gateway experience before boarding for a bigger Disney adventure

That's what I'm getting at.  Hell, even a Disney resort would be worth thinking about.

[Original]

Something like say a Disney Aulani in Hawaii but in North Queensland here?

[rappa]

That would be a logical first step. 

[AheadMatthewawsome]

15 hours ago, Jdude95 said:

It would be a much smaller project. Something like Disney Wharf that was once planned. Somewhere Disney owned that can be a gateway experience before boarding for a bigger Disney adventure

We just can’t have it costing billions of dollars this time round. And even if it’s not an Disney project. Something should be done about White Bay. It’s currently an flat concrete parking lot that’s barely used. It would be an fantastic opportunity for some sort of development to take place. Maybe an World Expo? Besides, nothing is gonna happen for an little while because of COVID-19. So if we are getting anything, it won’t be until at least the mid to late 2020’s to start construction.

[jcgoldcoast]

On 05/09/2020 at 12:47 PM, rappa said:

It’s not uncommon for a single attraction to cost 300 million Australian dollars. Let that sink it, that’s well well over a million dollars from EVERY SINGLE AUSTRALIAN that would be needed to pay for one attraction. 

I think you mean $12 for every Australian. $1 mil from every single Australian is $25 billion .

[Gazza]

On 05/09/2020 at 12:47 PM, rappa said:

It’s not uncommon for a single attraction to cost 300 million Australian dollars. Let that sink it, that’s well well over a million dollars from EVERY SINGLE AUSTRALIAN that would be needed to pay for one attraction. 
 

😂

You alright love?

300 x $1m = $300m

Australia doesn't have 300 people in.

 

 

That all said, $300M for a new ride would be hard to get a return on here, thats like double the cost of an entire park like WnW Sydney.

Edited September 6, 2020 by Gazza

[rappa]

Yes indeed, I had a thought in my head that 100% didn’t translate out into what I wrote 😂😂😂

Thank goodness a couple people are paying attention and corrected me. 

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Don't worry - happens to the best of us...

 

[Naazon]

18 hours ago, AheadMatthewawsome said:

We just can’t have it costing billions of dollars this time round. And even if it’s not an Disney project. Something should be done about White Bay. It’s currently an flat concrete parking lot that’s barely used. It would be an fantastic opportunity for some sort of development to take place. Maybe an World Expo? Besides, nothing is gonna happen for an little while because of COVID-19. So if we are getting anything, it won’t be until at least the mid to late 2020’s to start construction.

COVID is actually a good time to start projects, if the company is self funding. Governments will cut red tape, approve stuff they wouldn't normally, all in the name of more Jobs and increased future tourism. As shown, governments are also willing to throw funds at things to boost them along or speed projects up.

[AheadMatthewawsome]

44 minutes ago, Naazon said:

COVID is actually a good time to start projects, if the company is self funding. Governments will cut red tape, approve stuff they wouldn't normally, all in the name of more Jobs and increased future tourism. As shown, governments are also willing to throw funds at things to boost them along or speed projects up.

You make an good point. But I still think it’ll take until at least the mid to late 2020’s for construction to start. Because first you need to get attention to an development company to build some apartments. And for an bigger project, you need to get the state government’s attention. And if you want to do something like an World Expo, you need to get attention from the World Expo Committee (whoever they are called), and get nominated. I might be able to get some attention in the State Government as I do know some people there, but it’s still very tricky. And then you need all of the planning approvals which take an long time to approve.

[Naazon]

Starting a project =/= construction. Starting a project is planning, funding, approval and contracts. My point was now is the time to do that if the project is self funded as the other parts the government will assist

Edited September 7, 2020 by Naazon

[rappa]

Problem is Disney parks usual have a good 5-10 years from first ideas to construction so they won’t pull something together real quick. 
Especially with their currently depressed resources. 
 

More than anything else I think the cost of labor in Australia will be the biggest hurdle for a Disney park. Their parks basically rely on an unbelievably high standard of service and presentation as their point of different. They achieve this with an insane number of staff in every department and roll. You can do that at $8 an hour. But you can’t at $25

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

3 hours ago, rappa said:

You can do that at $8 an hour. But you can’t at $25

You can, but then you have to charge more for it. And that's the biggest hurdle for an Australian Disney park - because foreigners are already paying a fortune to travel here, and then deal with the much higher prices for pretty much everything....

And meanwhile the locals won't pay the premium price because down the road is doing it for $99 annual....

It would have to be an insanely exclusive, one of a kind experience that you can't get anywhere else to draw people in, and the biggest cost savings for Disney are cloning the same attractions at multiple parks to offset the R&D cost - so its a catch 22.