Although Hong Kong Disneyland is more than one month from its grand opening, the publicity and promotion of the theme park already has been sped up.

More than 200 Chinese and foreign journalists from Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), Chinese Mainland and China's Taiwan attended Tuesday's tour of the newly-built five-star Hong Kong Disney Hotel and the four-star Hollywood Hotel.

Disney's targeting tourist sourcing markets are clear -- one third from Hong Kong, another one third from the Chinese mainland and the rest from Southeast Asian countries.

Tuesday's tour is one of a package of promotion activities held recently by the Hong Kong Disneyland. The only railway specially designed for Disneyland parks worldwide -- Hong Kong MTR railway started operation from Aug. 1. A tour by journalists on July 21 and some other overseas promotion activities earlier have drawn much attention of Hong Kong citizens and even people abroad.

The results are also apparent. Roy Yan Hardy, vice president for marketing and sales for the theme park, said during a question and answer session on Tuesday for the visiting journalists that Hong Kong Disneyland has witnessed a strong reservation of theme park tickets and hotel rooms.

He said hotel room reservation during holidays such as the Mid-Autumn Festival and weekends in the coming months has already accounted for half of the total of 1,000 rooms of the two hotels.

Peter J.H. Lowe, general manager in charge of HK Disneyland hotel operation, said in an interview with Xinhua that most of people who have reserved Disneyland hotel rooms are Hong Kong residents.

The two hotels have received some whole sale reservation of hotel rooms by some Chinese mainland, as well hotel room reservation by passengers from Singapore and some other southeast Asian countries.

He believed that a stronger whole sale hotel room reservation will come soon.

To raise more attention of Hong Kong Disneyland, Hong Kong Disneyland has decided to arrange a three-day running opening celebration activities starting from Sept. 12 with daily themes including opening, theme park and hotels.

In fact, the "Disneyland fever" has already begun to appear in Hong Kong. Since Aug. 1, when the MTR railway to Disneyland opened, the railway attracted a daily average of about 10,000 passengers in the first eight days of its operation.

What's more, nearly 40,000 people took the railway line for merely the experiencing of the fascinating designed trains and taking pictures at a fountain just outside of the front door of the theme park and watch the shows of fireworks.

The trains have the shapes of Mickey Mouse's eras and statues of the Disneyland figures. The Hong Kong Disneyland project was announced in 1999 as a venture between the Walt Disney Company and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government.

Following the completion of the first construction phase of the Hong Kong Disneyland by the HKSAR government, construction of the theme park and resort started in Jan. 2003 and is scheduled for opening on Sept. 12.

The theme park is expected to receive at least 5.6 million of tourists at the first year of its opening.

(Xinhua News Agency August 11, 2005)