Park Profile Asia
parkworld-online.com
The Dalian Wanda Group, or at least the theme park side
The Fantawild group, the largest operator in China with 25 amusement parks and several water parks, also show no sign of slowing down. 2017 was a relatively quiet year, with only one theme park opening, Oriental Heritage in Xiamen on top of a number of water parks. But 2018 looks to be another landmark year with no less than four theme parks scheduled to open. The flagship ride in Xiamen is a Martin and Vleminckx
wooden coaster called the Jungle Trailblazer, which is the name used for all the wooden coasters found in the chain of parks. This Jungle Trailblazer is the same layout as Fjord Flying Dragon at Happy Valley Tianjin. Joining the wooden coaster is a Vekoma Boomerang called Stress Express. This should come as no surprise as most Fantawild resorts already have one of these on offer. Disney are also making rapid expansion plans for Shanghai Disneyland which has seemingly become a victim of its own success, with crowds proving to be a major issue at the park. On most days it can take over an hour just to get through the front gates, and E ticket rides such as Soarin and Tron often see queue times in excess of three hours. As a ‘quick fix’, before the park celebrated its first birthday, construction began on a Toy Story Land. Among the rides being added is an Intamin shuttle coaster identical to the RC Racer in Hong Kong Disneyland and Disneyland Resort Paris. The exact line up of rides remains a secret with Disney describing it as "authentically Disney and distinctly Chinese" and an "experience guests can only have in Mainland China.” So it’s not expected to be a cookie cutter copy of the other Toy Story lands found in Disney parks around the world. Disney’s big rival, or so their competitor says, is the Dalian
Wanda Group. The company plans to have 15 parks across China by 2020 and by 2018 there will be at least 10, currently there are three.
of the company, has gone through a change of ownership this summer. Wang Jianlin has sold off 76 hotels and 13 tourist projects to another Chinese company, Sunac for a reported $9.3billion. In 2016 Wang Jianlin declared a turf war with Disney,
saying they should not have come to China and that he proclaimed his theme parks are a “wolf pack” compared to Disney’s Shanghai park which is a “lone tiger”. But now it would appear the Dalian Wanda Group is beating the retreat from theme park operations, possibly to concentrate on their global cinema empire and movie production company. Construction is already well under way on a number of
Wanda parks, and at least two should open in the next 18 months in Wuxi and Guangzhou. Wanda City Wuxi will be home to a Mack Rides clone of Blue Fire, a B&M Wing Coaster and an Intamin inverted Impulse coaster. Whilst in Guangzhou there’s a rather interesting roller coaster from Intamin, a dual track launched coaster with suspended and sit down trains dueling. The pace of growth in China really is so fast that it’s difficult
to keep up, this certainly isn’t an exhaustive list of projects currently underway and based on recent history there’s still a lot more to come. Colourful Yunnan Happy World with a custom B&M wing coaster and two Mack Rides coasters is set to open next year. The elaborately themed Ocean Paradise will also debut in 2018 with two custom rides from Intamin. Whilst 2020 will see the opening of World Fairytale Land, which will be home to an S&S Freespin coaster, and a Vekoma Firestorm launched coaster. And it shouldn’t be forgotten that the Six Flags name is also set to debut in China, with the company promising record breaking rides at the park in Haiyan, 45 minutes from Shanghai. So for the foreseeable future there really is no sign of the bubble bursting on the remarkable growth for the amusement industry in China.
SEPTEMBER 2017
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108
