Shanghai Disney Resort, a theme park twice the size of California’s original Disneyland, officially opened on June 16th, 15 years since Chinese officials first hatched plans to get the industry’s runaway leader to build it.

Despite China’s cooling economy, interest is high. Even before the official opening, 1 million punters had turned up for a look and tickets are sold out for weeks.

The market in China is enormous and growing rapidly. Four Chinese firms were among the world’s ten biggest park operators by attendance in 2015; the year before only one made the list.

Given the USD 5.5 billion invested by Disney and its Chinese partners, much hangs in the balance. Resorts make up a big chunk of Disney’s revenues and profits. And despite its expertise, it has occasionally misfired outside America. Euro Disney in Paris originally refused to sell wine, to the horror of the French.

Disney already runs four of the world’s five biggest theme parks and 55% of all fair-goers around the world visit one of its resorts. But in the past decade, Asia’s share of global theme park visits has swelled to 42% while North America’s has shrunk to 47%.

With over 300 million people living within three hours’ journey to Shanghai Disneyland, around the population of the entire United States, it is not hard to see why.

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