HK Disneyland won't cut maximum capacity

Hong Kong won't cut its daily maximum capacity, Thursday of 30,000 people despite complaints of large crowds and long queues from visitors during rehearsal days, company said.

About 16,000 people one-third of them from mainland China were expected to attend the park's opening on Monday, said Eva Cheng, Hong Kong's tourism commissioner.

Many of the 29,000 visitors who visited Hong Kong Disneyland for a charity day last weekend complained of excessively long queues to enter the park as well as to get on rides, and critics have urged Disney to reduce its maximum daily capacity, local newspapers reported.

But a Disney spokeswoman, Esther Wong, said the company is "confident we can manage peak day attendance in the future and have designed our marketing and sales plan to manage attendance at Hong Kong Disneyland throughout the year."

Earlier, Disney said it was considering extending opening hours and adding more shows at the park as Hong Kong's financial chief expressed concern about the large crowds when the park is operating at its capacity.

The park, a joint venture between the Hong Kong government and The Walt Disney Co., is expected to draw 5.6 million people in its first year of operation, with mainland Chinese tourists accounting for about a third of that number.

But mainland travel agents said ticket sales for Hong Kong Disneyland are poor as the long queues and expensive hotel rates are driving mainland tourists away, the South China Morning Post reported Thursday.

"We only managed to sell roughly 300 tickets during the first week after the park opens," Huang Feiyueh, executive director of Amsito Travel Service, was quoted as saying, reports the AP.