Guess who just built a fake Scandinavian village in Hong Kong?

Disney’s beloved Frozen franchise is coming to life in a new way: The entertainment giant has just opened an Arendelle theme park at Hong Kong Disneyland Resort. Called ‘World of Frozen’, the park is a Scandinavian-themed village straight out of Frozen and Frozen 2.

The park features two rides: A high-speed roller coaster and a boat ride. Actors playing Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff will roam the grounds to interact with guests, according to CNN, and a band will wander around to play music from the movies.

Frozen is one of Disney’s most successful, profitable and catchiest inventions. Frozen and Frozen 2 still top lifetime box office charts, ranking 20th and 13th, respectively, with all-time spending totaling nearly USD$2.8 billion between them. This is likely not going to be the last hyper-specific attraction from Disney. The brand plans to spend USD$60 billion on its parks in the next 10 years.

Yes, you read that correctly. That’s USD$60 billion—with a ‘b.’ Disney has been immune to economic turmoil, according to Skift. In November, the site reported that Disney’s international parks revenue had more than doubled for the quarter, raking in USD$441 million.

“We’re not seeing anything in terms of an economic hangover,” Kevin Lansberry, Walt Disney’s interim chief financial officer, told Skift last month. “Domestically we feel good. Internationally we feel good.”

But if you’re going to travel, why go to an approximation of a Scandinavian village when you could, say, go to Norway, which inspired Arendelle? Perhaps some ‘Disney adults’ can explain. If you’re not one of them, you might be surprised to learn the findings of a 2018 demographic study that found only about a third of park visitors had kids in tow. 

“As an adult, it’s about having that escape and having those pieces of nostalgia that you can go back to,” James Demetriades, an attorney in Connecticut, told NPR last year in a story about how Disney is something of a “religion” for adult fans. He spent about USD$6,000 on three trips to Disney in 2021. 

There’s some science to that magic, according to clinical psychologist Jaime Zuckerman, Psy.D., who spoke with Bustle about the lingering appeal of Disney. The parks are “one of the few places you can go back to,” she says. “You can actually recreate that nostalgic feeling within your control.”

That nostalgia is what fuels Disney’s marketing machine, according to retired psychologist Amber Sargeant, who tells Bustle that Disney offers a sense of community that “turns adults who like Disney into adults who love it.”

“Humans by nature are pack animals, and we thrive being in groups,” Sargent said. “Sports, for example, create close-knit communities, as do fans of pop stars like Taylor Swift.”

Visiting Disney theme parks can be a pilgrimage for many adults, NPR reported. “People see their trips to Disney in a very reverent light,” Jodi Eichler-Levine, a professor of religion at Lehigh University, told NPR. “People will go there and talk about being transformed or making crucial memories. And they’ll go to mark particular life events, like announcing a pregnancy or after they’ve gotten through treatment for an illness.”

Disney’s full grip on a corner of the travel world is about to expand even more. Reports show that there might soon be similar parks in Disneyland Paris and Tokyo Disney. And next year, Disneyland in California will open Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, inspired by The Princess and the Frog.

It is nice to remember that the places and cultures that Disney’s parks celebrate (and attempt to emulate) are real, living places with extraordinary people, food, and communities themselves to discover. So if you’re a big fan of The Princess and the Frog, you could visit New Orleans and the Louisiana Bayou. If you loved Finding Nemo, remember that the Great Barrier Reef is a real place (that needs us to step in with conservation efforts to revive it). Colombia’s varied ecosystems and rich Indigenous culture is waiting for fans of Oscar-winning Encanto. The list goes on. 

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