Wanda opens first China theme park as it takes aim at Disney

(May 28): Billionaire Wang Jianlin Saturday officially unveiled Dalian Wanda Group Co.’s Wanda City, the first of the company’s 15 planned theme park and entertainment projects in China that it hopes will help it unseat Walt Disney Co. as the world’s largest tourism operator.

The Wanda Cultural Tourism City, spanning 2 square kilometers (200 hectares) in Nanchang, in the southeastern Jiangxi province, features a theme park, a movie park, an aquarium, hotels and retail stores, the company said in an e-mailed statement. Wanda expects the complex to attract 10 million people a year, according to the statement.

Less than a week ago, Wang said that Disney’s single theme park, which opens in Shanghai on June 16, won’t be a match for his Beijing-based group’s bevy of Wanda City projects set to open across the country. Disney’s “one tiger is no match for a pack of wolves,” Wang said on a May 22 broadcast on China Central Television.

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