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Tokyo Disney Resort operator Oriental Land Co. aims to increase the annual number of visitors to their theme parks by 10 percent to 33 million over the next 10 years, President Kyoichiro Uenishi said in an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun.
To increase the number of repeat visitors, the company will introduce new attractions and areas, while taking measures to address overcrowding, according to Uenishi.
Oriental Land Co. President Kyoichiro Uenishi speaks during an interview in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, on June 24. Photo: The Yomiuri Shimbun
At Tokyo Disneyland, Oriental Land will create a new area inspired by the animated movie “Beauty & the Beast,” aiming to open the area in the spring of 2020.
At Tokyo DisneySea, the company is considering introducing a new area themed on “Frozen,” another animated film, in fiscal 2021 or later.
Graphic: The Yomiuri Shimbun
“The current planned site does not have enough area to re-create the worlds of the movies,” Uenishi said, so the company will consider expanding the theme parks by making use of the surrounding land.
Uenishi anticipates a total investment of about ¥250 billion in Tokyo Disney Resort over the next five years.
The resort enjoys overwhelming status among theme parks in Japan, but it has seen a considerable drop in its customer satisfaction ranking in an independent survey. Additionally, Uenishi said that in Oriental Land’s own study, “Customer satisfaction levels do not meet our goals.”
Oriental Land has raised the park entrance fees for three consecutive years since fiscal 2014, and currently a one-day ticket for each park costs ¥7,400 per adult (aged 18 or older). Some believe that this has caused many people to feel as though the parks’ benefits do not justify the cost.
Uenishi indicated the potential for another price hike, saying, “We’ll look at the balance between the value of our facilities and the feelings of visitors carefully, and potentially increase ticket prices with appropriate timing.” However, the issue could be a difficult decision for the president in the future.
More than 30 million people visit Tokyo Disney Resort annually, posing another set of challenges, including long waiting times due to large crowds.
To address these challenges, Oriental Land will close attractions that currently fail to attract large crowds and will repurpose those areas to even out the flow of people. The company is also considering ways to make it easier for visitors to shop and do other things while waiting in lines.
While the municipal government of Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, has requested the construction of a new theme park for that city, Uenishi took a cautious stance, saying, “We are concentrating on the redevelopment of Tokyo Disney Resort for now, so we aren’t able to consider that plan immediately.”
(THE YOMIURI SHIMBUN)
