A visitor arrives in Hong Kong, intending to take in most of its sites plus make a quick side trip to the mainland. In Hong Kong, they visit the Buddha of the Po Lin monastery, enjoy the nightlife at Lan Kwai Fong, absorb the local culture of the Man Mo temple, and even find time for a few rides at Disneyland. On their side trip, they manage to visit the mainland’s Great Wall and Forbidden City.

But something is strange. The floors in the Lan Kwai Fong bars aren’t sticky, and no broken glass litters the street. The incense in the temple isn’t that pervasive. And where are the 268 steps between the buses and the Buddha?

The explanation for these mysteries is simple. Instead of spending many hours on the Hong Kong transit system and on a trip to the mainland, the visitor has sampled much of Hong Kong and the mainland, without leaving the Disneyland resort on Lantau Island.

It’s just an hour from Central on a convenient subway line – and the final few minutes are spent on a cushy train with windows in the shape of Mickey Mouse ears..

Professor Richard Foglesong , the author of a book about the way the Disney company works its magic, warned recently that Disney might grab more of the money tourists bring to Hong Kong by recreating the territory’s – and even some of the mainland’s – main attractions.

They could offer Lan Kwai Fong, but cleaner, safer, and better, he said. And the incense of the Man Mo temple is “something they might want to fix.”

The Hong Kong government invested $25 billion to obtain a 57% stake in the Disneyland resort, hoping that the park would attract tourists, especially mainland tourists, to Hong Kong. In return, Hong Kong hopes to see benefits to the local economy of $148 billion over the next 40 years and the creation of 38,500 jobs over the next 20 years.

However, some have doubts about the revenue distribution of Disneyland’s profits, and it is not clear how much the Hong Kong government will see. If further expansion of the park is aimed at keeping visitors there, local businesses that rely on tourism may suffer.

Foglesong, a political scientist who spoke recently at Hong Kong University, drew on his research of Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, to give an idea of how Hong Kong’s Disneyland might develop.

Walt Disney, founder of the Disney company, was annoyed by the “ticky-tacky” development of cheap motels and fast-food restaurants that arose around the original California Disneyland in the 1950s. He also knew few people from the East coast of the United States were making the trip to the West coast to visit the park.

So when he decided to expand in Florida, he sought to develop a larger park that would be largely self-contained. The company bought 104 square kilometres of land, an area greater than Hong Kong Island, that would be used to insulate the park from outside development and allow huge expansion.

Walt Disney World’s development has aimed to keep people within the premises, “to spend their money with them,” Foglesong said. In 1984, Walt Disney World targeted local business that benefited from the park. Within ten years, Disney had moved from owning two hotels to providing for one-third of the hotel market of Orlando. Disney also directly targeted its competition, building two night-time entertainment complexes and extending their attractions, such as building three water parks.

Foglesong described the Disney attitude as believing that the customers were theirs alone, and that other companies should not benefit from Walt Disney World tourists. The park has effectively killed three proposals to build a train-line between the Orlando airport and Walt Disney World by refusing to allow a station at the park after non-Disney hotels demanded intermediary stops that would allow fast access to the park for visitors staying at these hotels.

“That’s the game they play,” he said.

But so far, the culture at Disneyland in Hong Kong is almost entirely that of Disney. The rides and attractions do not reflect Chinese culture, and the entrance to the park opens into Main Street, U.S.A. Only the food and some gift-shop figurines have made a concession to local culture.

Below the surface, they have made smaller allowances to Chinese culture. Feng Shui experts were consulted in the planning process, and incense was burned after the completion of each building. The main ballroom is 888 square metres, and the hotels do not have a fourth floor, in acknowledgement of the number eight signifying fortune and four being unlucky.

But such small allowances are only to make the park compatible with local culture, which is entirely different from a replication of what Hong Kong has to offer.

The plans for the second phase of development are not clear to the public. However, complaints about the lack of attractions has led to widespread rumour that park will concentrate on extending with attractions similar to those seen at other Disney parks.

With the Hong Kong Disneyland extending to just 2.8 square kilometres with phase two of the development, it will remain just a fraction of the size of Disney World in Florida. Such a small area means that the Hong Kong Disneyland will not have much room to go beyond these attractions in phase two.

But it is difficult to predict what Disney plans with their development. Hong Kong has already had a taste of their secrecy with their reluctance to release visitor numbers, and such secrecy is typical of the Disney company throughout the world.

Fogleson calls the Disney company “insular, defensive and somewhat arrogant.” With such attributes, it’s difficult to predict how the Hong Kong Disneyland will develop.