Hong Kong Disneyland, the studio-branded theme park, reversed the recent trend of bad news in the first quarter of Disney's financial year.

           Park, which opened in October 2005 and missed attendance targets in its first two years, showed "double digit growth" in the October to December period, according to Thomas Staggs, Disney's CFO.

          "Attendance at Hong Kong Disneyland improved significantly versus prior year as our entertainment offerings during Halloween and the holidays helped to boost attendance from both the local Hong Kong market and Mainland China,” he said.

          Company did not supply data on either visitor numbers, per head spending or hotel occupancy.

          Improvements are credited as flowing from creation of new promotional events and better relations with the travel trade in Southern China.

          "Hong Kong obviously showed significant improvement last quarter. We were very bullish about Chinese New Year which basically is this week. There have been horrible winter weather conditions across China, particularly Southern China, and it’s possible that could put a bit of a damper on our results around Chinese New Year," Disney CEO Bob Iger said.

"(Disney) is engaged in on-going discussion with the HK Government, the majority shareholder of HKDL, on the expansion of the park. It expects that such financing likely would include additional investment by the Company (TWDC)," Park sources in Hong Kong said.