The loss-making Hong Kong Disneyland is undergoing a round of personnel adjustment involving nearly 100 people, including some management staff, the Xinhua News Agency reported over the weekend.
One industry expert warned Sunday that life will get even harder for the facility once the Disney resort in Shanghai opens in June.
The 100 workers will be either laid off or transferred to other positions, according to the report.
Hong Kong Disneyland, which opened in 2005, has about 5,000 full-time employees and another 2,500 part-time workers, it said.
This isn't the first bad news for Hong Kong Disneyland recently. On February 15, the company reported a net loss of HK$148 million ($19.07 million) for 2015, the first in four years. In March, Managing Director Andrew Kam resigned.
"The Shanghai Disney Resort will bring more pressure to the Hong Kong one once it kicks open on June 16," Liu Simin, vice president of the China Society for Futures Studies' tourism research institute, told the Global Times Sunday.
The Hong Kong Disneyland has relied heavily on tourists from the Chinese mainland for income. But its main source of money has been dampened recently, as the number of mainland tourists has dropped sharply in the past year following occasional reports on conflicts between Hong Kong residents and mainland tourists and competition from destinations like South Korea and Japan.
Liu noted that though Hong Kong is adjacent to Southeast Asia, personal incomes in the region aren't on par with those in the mainland. So it's unlikely that the Hong Kong Disneyland can draw a large number of Southeast Asian visitors anytime soon.
"Plus, the market in Hong Kong itself is very small," he said.
The Hong Kong Disney facility reported losses in its early stages, mainly due to high labor and land costs. It is also the smallest Disney resort in the world, which has also reduced its attraction, analysts said.
"But the Shanghai one is different," said Liu, noting that Shanghai is totally capable of repeating the success of the Tokyo Disneyland.
