正在建设中的香港迪斯尼乐园将于2005年底至06年初开幕。迪斯尼公司已经着手开始在中国大陆地区的宣传活动，旨在吸引7000万中国年轻人。中国市场是迪斯尼公司最后一个尚未开发的大市场。迪斯尼公司方面预计，乐园开幕首年会有五百六十万人次入场，其中香港、内地及东南亚游客各占三分一。

Walt Disney has enlisted the help of China's 70 million-strong youth as it prepares to enter one of its last major untapped markets .

The US entertainment giant is planning to tour Chinese youth centres in a bid to build awareness of the Disney brand.

The publicity drive comes ahead of the opening next year of the firm's $1.8bn (￡1bn) Disney theme park in Hong Kong.

The youth sessions will include storytelling, interactive games and lessons in how to draw Mickey Mouse.

Disney said it would be working in partnership with the country's Communist Youth League.

Disney expects that about one-third of the visitors to its Hong Kong park - the firm's second in Asia after Tokyo - will come from mainland China.

"It's one part of an overall brand building process," said Jay Rasulo, president of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.

"We've had to be innovative. If you look at Europe and Tokyo, the brand was far better understood."

Disney's attempts to woo China's youth began in July, when a Disney team, including Mickey Mouse, visited 500 children at two youth centres in Guangzhou, in southern China.

The move into China represents "a huge commercial opportunity for Disney", according to Andy Milligan, of branding consultancy Interbrand.

"America and Western Europe is pretty much taken care of, but Asia is a big and growing market," he told reporters.

"There is an increasingly affluent middle-class in China, so they have money to spend and money to travel."

Such is Disney's faith that China's youth will embrace the likes of Mickey Mouse and Sleeping Beauty, the company is doing little to dampen speculation that another theme park will eventually be built in Shanghai.

"There's very little doubt in my mind that there will be a market further north in China for a second Disneyland," said Mr Rasulo.