Tom Mehrmann, the chief executive of Hong Kong's Ocean Park, has told the local media that Chinese mainland is the main tourist source region for Hong Kong, and tourists from the mainland accounted for 45% of the total tourist arrivals at Ocean Park.
On March 24 2009, Ocean Park launched two brand new sightseeing entities in Shanghai with the aim of attracting more tourists from the Yangtze River Delta region.
Ocean Park has been attaching much importance to its expansion in the Chinese mainland market. As early as in 2006, it set up a representative office in Guangzhou and launched a hot line in the mainland in addition to offering a range of transportation facilities to link Hong Kong with major cities in the Pearl River Delta. In July 2008, Ocean Park established an office in Shanghai and began to cooperate with many local travel service providers and businesses, providing preferential tickets for Shanghai residents.
It is learned that Ocean Park will establish an office in Beijing this year and another one in Chengdu in the near future. According to Mehrmana, Ocean Park will increase the number of travel attractions to 70 from the current 35 and it will complete the construction of four themed travel attractions between 2010 and 2013.
Established in 1977, Ocean Park is a theme park that covers over 870,000 square meters and receives more than five million tourists each year.
(China Hospitality News March 27, 2009)