LEGACY ENTERTAINMENT TO DESIGN NEW ‘HAPPY VALLEY’ FOR OCT GROUP

BY GABRIELLE

China’s leading attraction operators the OCT Group have selected California-based Legacy Entertainment to design a new Happy Valley theme park. The new park will be the ninth Happy Valley to be built and will be located in the city of Zhengzhou in the Henan Province.

Since their founding in 2002, Legacy Entertainment have carved out a reputation as one of the world’s leading entertainment design studios and will craft a unique and original design for the new theme park. The company has experience developing projects in China, having been the creative force behind several projects in the country including the Chimelong Marine Science Centre which is set to open later this year.

Legacy’s president and chief creative officer, Taylor Jeffs, said of the partnership: “We are extremely honoured to have been selected to help OCT create the next generation of Happy Valley Theme Parks. Ever since my first visit to a Happy Valley park in 2007, my team and I have dreamed of a collaboration with OCT – so it is thrilling and humbling for us now that that dream has come true.”

The OCT Group are by far China’s largest theme park developer and operator with multiple attractions including Windows on the World, OCT East and Splendid China, in addition to the Happy Valley parks.

No date has yet been set for completion of the latest Happy Valley, though the eighth Happy Valley park is due to open later this year in the city of Nanjing in China’s eastern Jiangsu Province.

OCT’S OPERATING INCOME REACHES 17.7 BILLION YUAN IN FIRST HALF OF 2019

BY GABRIELLE

OCT, Overseas Chinese Town Enterprises, has disclosed its 2019 half-annual report. The report reveals that in the first half of 2019, the enterprise’s operating income reached 17.7 billion yuan, up 20% year-on-year.

The report also showed that the net income in the same period was up 23% year-on-year to 2.8 billion yuan and that the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies had risen 40% year-on-year to 4.1 billion yuan.

OCT’s total assets reached 334.6 billion yuan, a 14% increase from the start of the year. At the end of the first half of 2019, the asset liability of ratio was 76.7%, a 2.93% increase from the end of 2018.

During the first half of 2019, OCT had 18 projects in operation, equating to a total investment amount of 18.14 billion yuan. The organisation’s new equity construction project comprising of 4,367,800 square metres, soared by a huge 90% year-on-tear.

OCT’s new land reserve projects were predominantly focused on first and second tier cities. The projects are designed to improve the strategic layout in Shenzhen, Xi’an, Wuxi, Nanjing, Wuhan, Jinan, Chengdu, Zhengzhou and other cities.

In relation to tourism, during the first half of the year, OCT worked on a total of 19 scenic locations, focused on leisure tourism resorts, independently operated performing arts projects, 24 hotels and a travel agency.

In the first half of the year, the company attracted 17.82 million visitors to its sites.

OCT INVESTS 170 BILLION YUAN ON CULTURAL TOURISM INDUSTRY

BY 

Investment in cultural tourism projects delivered by the OCT Group (Overseas Chinese Town Enterprises) and its subsidiaries during the first half of 2019, reached around 170 billion yuan.

One of the OCT Group’s most recent investments was for a parcel of land in Baishuizhai Town in the Zengcheng District, Guangzhou. The Group paid 574 million yuan for the land, which they will use for the cultural tourism industry. The total investment for the project is around 1.5 billion yuan.

Several months ago, OCT acquired the 20-year managerial authority of Baishuixian Waterfall Scenic Spot in Baishuizhai. The site comes with an annual management fee of 10 million yuan, and the total investment for the project was 1 billion yuan.

OCT have also invested 10 billion yuan in tourism projects in Yangxi County, Yangjiang City and the Guangdong Province, as well as an 11-billion-yuan investment in Yangshan County, Qingyuan, and 20 billion yuan in Linyi, Shandong.

These projects involve the collaboration of several industries, including cultural tourism, real estate, hotels, themed business, ecological leisure, healthcare and more.

OCT has also completed the initial layout of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area through investing in the Pearl River Delta region. The project involves a number of different cultural tourism developments.

The cultural tourism projects in Guangdong are expected to be completed after 2020.