This is starting to look sweet.
http://www.themeparx.com/embedded/15...15750656_o.jpg
This is starting to look sweet.
http://www.themeparx.com/embedded/15...15750656_o.jpg
well they failed ,miserably than.. dont know about their management but their frontline staff are like anyother . no one is promoting ocean park to the world, and its only famous with high schoolers for halloween at least it was when i was in school. you never see ocean park in overseas advertisement
You do realize that our dear friends at legco would probably end up spending the $10 billion on some vanity infrastructure project to please their Beijing overlords. I too would rather they spend it one of the few long standing, and to be fair decent, attractions for local and tourists in HK.
OP doesn't deserve a bailout. If you think about the park's performance in the context of investing, its sucess in the past was all beta, riding the wave of Mainland tourism. Zeman did nothing to show he could boost visitors if you strip that away - very little to no alpha. IMO many also say he's also not a friend of the local people of HK and a opportunist. Tell him to go to Beijing to ask for a handout or get it from the capital markets IMO.
Also @Paxbritannia - Zeman has not been involved with Ocean Park for a while...Speaking to reporters on Monday afternoon, Yau said that HK$5.4 billion is needed to save the park from closing down, and that it will run out of cash as early as June.
The item has been put on the agenda of Legco's Finance Committee for this Friday's meeting, and the sum is to keep the park running for the next 12 months and to cover HK$3 billion worth of loans that are soon due to be repaid soon.
The amusement park had in January requested funding of HK$10.6 billion for a revamp to shore up its visitor numbers.
Yau said that this revised plan is different from the revamp plan which was aimed at making the park financially sustainable in the long-run.
"That was a plan to redevelop Ocean Park into the next stage," he said, referring to the January proposal. "But one thing has changed the whole scenario, which is the epidemic," he said.
https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/compone...3-20200511.htm
OP started its downward trajectory after Zeman left (he was forced out by CY Leung because he supported Henry Tang), so I don't think he was to blamed. OP was run-down, dismissed as a third-rate Six Flags or SeaWorld and facing closure before Zeman took over and remodeled the park. He brought in theme park managers with experience competing with Disney. One can argue he actually brought the park back to life for a while. When he left, government bureaucrats once again ran the park into the ground.
Problems were popping up before the pandemic and protests. Visitor numbers were declining even when mainland tourists were still flooding the city. The problem rest with CY Leung appointing loyalists to the Park and they simply weren't competent at running the park. Unless more professional theme park managers are brought in and government bureaucrats kicked out or diminished in power, OP will keep asking for bailouts one after another. I do agree with you on this: at some point, taxpayers will have to ask, when is enough is enough?
Last edited by Coolboy; 12-05-2020 at 09:26 AM.
Allan Zeman got replaced as chairman in 2014. Ocean Park dropped from being the 4th ranked theme park in Asia to 6th in 2015, 8th in 2016 and 10th in 2017 and 2018. Ocean Park made a profit in 2013 to 2015 and a loss ever since. It was the 13th most visited theme park in the world in 2013. Only the world's freest economy could manage to run that into the ground.