Lifestyle See and do

China’s theme park wars warming up

Written by Ben Blaschke

Opinions may be divided over the validity of building theme parks in Macau, but not so on the mainland where a battle for Chinese theme park supremacy is heating up.

Local company Dalian Wanda, owned by China’s richest man Wang Jianlin, opened its second theme park on Saturday – a giant US$5.1 billion park in Hefei covering 160 hectares and boasting hotels and a shopping mall among other attractions.

Wang has openly admitted he is in direct competition with US firm Walt Disney, which launched its highly publicized Shanghai Disney in June just a few weeks after Dalian Wanda opened its first park in Nanchang.

Dalian Wanda plans to open up to 20 theme parks across China by 2020 and already has four more under construction in Harbin, Qingdao, Guangzhou and Wuxi. Wang has previously stated that he wants Disney to go broke and leave China.