Walt Disney Company has ‘no plans’ for a Disneyland in Laos
For residents in landlocked Laos — one of the world’s least developed nations — it seemed too good to be true, and in the end it was.
The Walt Disney Company has confirmed it: the world’s seventh Disneyland theme park will not – repeat, not – be built in the Communist nation after all.
The confusion stemmed from an article early this month in the Lao-government-run Vientiane Times which appeared to state that the next Disney theme park was to be built in a rural province of southern Laos.
“Excavation work to prepare land for construction of Disney Laos … will begin next month” at Thakek, the newspaper stated on its inside cover.
Thakek is the capital of southern Khammouane province which is up to 10 hours by road from the capital Vientiane. In the rainy season the road is often washed away by floods.
The $US5 billion project was to include three phases, the newspaper said, “with the construction of Disney Laos to be part of the last phase” completed within 7-10 years. The newspaper outlined extensive details of the project, citing investors from Thailand, Malaysia and Laos.
The report generated an immediate frenzy of interest — and scepticism — on social media and in neighbouring Thailand.
Nearly 30,000 people “liked” the report on a Lao-run Facebook page.
“This is perhaps my favourite news story of the century so far,” said one reader.
“It’s the logical next destination for ole Walt: Paris, Hong Kong, Vientiane,” said another.
Although, the reaction was not all positive.
“We do not need Disney,” said one Lao woman. “We are already a Mickey Mouse country.”
And savvy Thai business leaders told Thailand’s The Nation newspaper they feared the report was a deliberate hoax to spark land price speculation.
Thailand’s north-eastern province borders the planned “Disney” site. Yet, as Thai media pointed out, Disney had no plans to build a similar theme park in Thailand, which after all has a population around 10 times that of Laos — 70 million versus six million.
Now, the Walt Disney Company has dispelled the reports as rumour.
“We continually look for ways to grow our business and as part of that process we have conversations with many different entities,” a US-based company representative said in an email to the Thai media website Khaosod.
“While Laos is an attractive market, we have no plans for the region at this time,” Christi Erwin Donnan said.
Rumour may stem from mistranslation
Residents in Vientiane are still coming to grips with the news.
“I am brok heart (sic),” posted one.
“Sheeeeeeet, I’d just boxed off my 2023 field trip!” said another.
One Vientiane resident suggested the false report may have stemmed from a mistranslation — that “Disneyland” is simply a generic term for “theme park” in the Lao language.
It is not the first time that Laos has apparently upset a huge global brand.
It is common knowledge in Vientiane that a local fried chicken shop took the name KFC when it opened a few years ago.
One resident even remembers a picture of Colonel Sanders above the shop, that had an uncanny resemblance to Ho Chi Minh.
It has since become urban myth that an employee from the real KFC noticed the shop while holidaying in Laos and reported the copyright breach back to headquarters.
Soon after, the shop took down the signage and Colonel Sanders.
Although there is now another shop in Vientiane that also trades on the KFC name — Kouvieng Fried Chicken, named after its location in the capital.