Tokyo Disney targets wealthy Chinese visitors
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Oriental Land Co., the operator of Tokyo’s Disney theme parks, is targeting wealthy Chinese and other overseas tourists to maintain growth as Japan’s declining birth rate cuts its domestic market, Bloomberg has reported.
The company is targeting a 22% rise in overseas visitors to the Disneyland and DisneySea theme parks within three years, bringing the total foreign arrivals to 1.3 million. Oriental Land’s Executive Vice President, Akio Nagaoka, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television; “With rapidly rising incomes in China and elsewhere in Asia, there’s a very big market for us to tap.”
Visitors from abroad currently account for 4.2% of the parks’ customers, but with Japan’s aging population and its economy in recession, Oriental Land is increasing overseas marketing and developing relations with travel operators to boost overseas arrivals.
Nagaoka predicted that, despite the current economic uncertainty, the number of Asian tourists to Japan - in particular Chinese - will increase dramatically. “An explosion in Asian tourism is occurring,” Nagaoka said.
Attendances at the twin parks have doubled over the past two decades, and Oriental Land hopes numbers may reach a record 26.5 million this year, the report added, helped by special events celebrating Tokyo Disneyland’s 25th anniversary.
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