Attendance slips at Tokyo Disney theme parks

This is a bit surprising to me. My understanding is that the Tokyo parks are some of the more crowded Disney parks in the world, and you would think the new guest space created with Fantasy Springs would subsequently increase the daily capacity of the park even if the land was operated with strict capacity restrictions. More space = more people, or so you would think. 2.4% is not a drop in the bucket, and certainly not reflective of a park that theoretically increased their daily capacity with new guest space. If I were Oriental Land Company (or even Disney), I'd be hesitant to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on park expansion, even when the park is considered at or near its max capacity (I'm looking at you Disneyland).

Never underestimate the power of a merch-driven anniversary event in the Asian theme park markets. Those clearly overdraw new attractions, which is a but of chilling thought for fans who want parks to expand.

That said, I really wonder if the mix of IP in Fantasy Springs was the right one to drive the attendance that an investment like that demands. Frozen is strong, but Tangled is a bit "meh," and does anyone really care about Peter Pan?

I will defer to experts on the Japanese market here, but these numbers are not exactly an endorsement.

@Robert - I get the middling appeal of the IPs in the market, but I'm baffled that the park increased in size (and theoretically increased the shear number of people they can jam into the park), but saw decreased attendance as a result. My understanding is that the Tokyo parks run at or near full capacity every single day they're open, and that the new guest space should have easily allowed them to get more turnstile clicks even if people weren't coming for Fantasy Springs.

It really makes you think what could happen at Disneyland if the expansion into the Toy Story Parking Lot is tethered to the existing parks, or even at Magic Kingdom with the Villains Land. I'm wonder if there is ultimately a "critical mass" for a theme park where they just can't get more people to come even if they increase their size and overall number of attractions.

It's not as simple as "if you build it they will come".

Something to keep in mind is that since the pandemic, Tokyo Disney has sold strictly single day, single park tickets that require a date reservation upon purchase. This has significantly reduced frequent visitation from locals as multi-day tickets and annual passes are no longer available, nor is the ability to spontaneously visit when you feel like showing up. I'm guessing this accounts for a majority of the attendance decrease at the park, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a decrease in visitation in the months prior to Fantasy Springs opening as people saved their money for trips following its debut. The hassles of experiencing the new land could have also pushed people to defer visits even further until those are removed, and the simultaneous closures of Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear likely impacted Disneyland visitation as well.

As for crowds, Russell, I suspect a lot of the talk regarding insane crowds at Tokyo Disney hasn't been updated for current times. On my visit last year, a vast majority of the attractions across the resort had wait times in the 30-60 minute range, which was far less than I was expecting given what I'd heard. It was really only three rides (Beauty and the Beast, Soaring, and Toy Story Mania) that had the crazy 120+ minute waits that I thought were the norm. By comparison, Universal Studios Japan (which didn't change their ticket structure and still sells both multi-day tickets and annual passes) was easily the busiest theme park I've ever experienced, with consistent two hour waits (or longer) for the headliners and 60-90 minute waits for even the smaller attractions.

Agreed. Accessing and enjoying Fantasy Springs involves so many different hurdles, products, and procedures, that I don't blame the locals [or visitors] from sitting it out this year until the hype dies down.

RM: "It's not as simple as 'if you build it they will come'".

Me: Are you listening Comcast? I've posed the (academic) question before: Why does it make sense to build a new Comcast park while, at the same time, totally neglecting the company's existing Orlando parks? Or to quote a wiser man than I, "It's not as simple as 'if you build it they will come'".

Actually TH, I would posit that Comcast might have found the right formula by building new parks (including in Texas, London, and Las Vegas). You can only make a park (and resort) so big before you start seeing diminishing returns in investments, even those that make the park physically bigger and thus able to physically accommodate more guests. When you reach that "critical mass" (which is where I think many American Disney parks are right now), the only way to extract more revenue is to increase per-cap spending, though even if you are able to get guests to spend extra days in the park, they're likely going to displace another guest who wants to visit for their first day.

By opening a new gate (particularly in a new location/market), you create entirely new demand and capacity that far exceeds what could be done from the expansion or new attraction in an existing park. While those are great tools to maintain demand and popularity of existing parks, it won't create the level of growth demanded from a publicly traded company (a reason why American business in general is such a debacle today).

I don't doubt that Epic will cannibalize the legacy parks, and Universal will need to work hard (and continue to invest) in order to ensure the billions they've spent on the new park will deliver the 25-30% increase in revenue anticipated from the corresponding increase in the Orlando resort's capacity. However, once the park has "matured", and based on most examples, it seems to take somewhere between 10-15 years for a park to reach maturity, Universal will have to decide whether the costs of opening another gate will sufficiently be recouped by what will then be a diminishing increase in revenue for the resort as a whole (likely why Disney has resisted the urge to open a 5th WDW park), given that the resort will have likely reached a "critical mass". However, by opening parks in new markets that have more capacity for growth, Universal is positioning themselves to deliver a more cost-effective (though less certain) means for providing a return to shareholders.

If nothing else, it will definitely be interesting to see how everything plays out over the next decade and if there is actually a "critical mass" for theme parks or if operators can find more ways to stuff more and more people through the gates at a rate to satisfy investors.