In the business of building magical worlds
Print Edition
CANADIAN Ian Scott is turning into quite the Shanghai person. He gave himself the Chinese name Yan Site and moved from an expat neighborhood in Jinqiao to a rental in Pudong’s Zhoupu Town to live among the locals.
He bought a secondhand motorcycle and is applying for a local driver’s license to ride to work every day.
This week Shanghai Disney Resort celebrated the topping out of the 420-room signature Shanghai Disneyland Hotel, just 12 months after its vertical construction began. Scott is the director of project management of hotels and Disneytown, the shopping, dining and entertainment district of Shanghai Disney Resort. He works in a building alongside the hotel and watches as the hotel takes shape.
“I love Asia so much that when they asked for people who wanted to work on the Shanghai project, I raised my hand immediately,” he said.
Scott works with a team of 170 engineers, known in Disney parlance as “Imagineers.” He also liaises with Chinese contractors, construction management companies, local design institutes and third party vendors working at the site. He calls the team his “big family.”
“I still remember back in 2013 when I was here, I saw a gentleman doing survey work for the foundation of the hotel,” he said. “Now the building is so high it blocks out the afternoon sun.”
Scott has charts and designs of the hotels and Disneytown strewn around his office. He said he likes to take time after lunch to walk around the construction site and marvel at how projects rise from artistic renditions.
The Shanghai Disneyland Hotel is an art nouveau-style building with 420 rooms. The 800-room Toy Story Hotel, inspired by Disney’s Pixar series of “Toy Story” animated films, is the first of its kind in the Disney stable. Scott said its atmosphere will immerse guests in a feeling of wonderment and animation.
Disneytown will feature more than 46,000 square meters of restaurants, shops and a major theater. The natural lakeshore in the town will offer scenic views and waterfront dining.
Marketplace, located at the heart of Disneytown, will be a family-oriented area of specialty shops selling Disney brand merchandise. Next to the Marketplace will be Spice Alley, offering popular Asian cuisines. The Beverly Hills shopping street and classy Broadway Boulevard will feature stylish boutiques.
Scott said a highlight of the town will be the 1,200-seat Walt Disney Grand Theater, where the first Mandarin version of the “Lion King” Broadway show will be staged.
The Shanghai Disney Resort is actually the third Disney project Scott has worked on. His first was Disney’s Grand Floridian Hotel in Orlando, Florida in 1999. He then went to Hong Kong in 2001 as project manager of the Disney-themed hotels there.
After Hong Kong, he returned to Disney in Florida but found he had left his heart in Asia.
Even as a child, Scott said, he was enraptured by the thought of adventures around the world. His father’s work as an industrial facility trainer took the family overseas.
A bit of a happy vagabond, Scott changed high schools 11 times, living in Canada, Puerto Rico and many Southeast Asian countries. He fondly remembers home in an Indonesian jungle and among the mountains of Puerto Rico.
He came to Shanghai to work on the local Disneyland project in 2011. It was, he said, the start of a new adventure.
“We are introducing many new features to this resort and creating a destination that is authentically Disney and distinctly Chinese,” he said.
“With Hong Kong and Shanghai, I have now worked in China for more than 10 years and I feel like just one of the many Chinese colleagues here,” he added.
He can now also speak some Mandarin.“One of my daughters has a boyfriend from Hong Kong, so I may even add a Chinese member to the family,” Scott said.
While Scott works in Shanghai, his wife teaches at an international school in Hong Kong. His daughters have recently graduated from universities in Canada and the US. To keep himself company in Shanghai, Scott has adopted a dog he found homeless at the construction site. He named it Oswald after the Disney lucky rabbit cartoon character.
What next after Shanghai Disney? Scott said he isn’t quite sure.
“Maybe I’ll set off on a new Disney adventure,” he said.
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