Japanese are still flocking to Tokyo Disneyland

Disneylands around the world are facing problems, but the magic has not dimmed in Japan where Mickey and friends are marking 25 years with fans as loyal as ever. Even though Japan’s birth rate is one of the world’s lowest, Tokyo Disneyland has set its sights on the generation who grew up admiring Disney cartoons on television and took their children to the park when it opened.

“The moment I arrive at Maihama Station, my heart starts singing with its legs doing dance steps,” said Toshiko Sugano. “I turn 58 next month, so I’ll have to come back to celebrate.” She was spending the day at Disneyland with her 31-year-old daughter and 54-year-old sister, all still enchanted since they first visited a quarter of a century ago. Her daughter, Izumi, a Disney fan, has visited the park more than 100 times.

Oriental Land Co. Ltd., the Japanese company that runs the park under a license contract with the Walt Disney group, has launched a discount pass for visitors 60 or older. “It’s two more years to go. Knowing that I’ll be able to get it, it’s quite nice getting old,” said Sugano who is determined to get one.

Holiday Nightmare is an attraction at Disneyland

Tokyo Disneyland opened in the suburbs of the Japanese capital on Apr. 15, 1983, as the company’s first theme park outside the United States. It was built on reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay dubbed Maihama — a Japanese take on Miami Beach near Florida’s Disney World. The resort has sprawled out to include hotels, a shopping mall, an aqua park and soon a permanent Cirque du Soleil.

The number of visitors to Disneyland and DisneySea — the water park which opened in 2001 — has stood at record levels of around 25 million in recent years, up from 9.9 million people in Disneyland’s first year. Since 1983 a total of 436 million people have visited the two parks that sit next to the megalopolis. Oriental Land puts annual revenue from the theme parks at $2.8 billion — far beyond the performances of other overseas Disneylands.

Sleeping Beauty Castle is one of the major landmarks found in all Disney themed parks

In Hong Kong, government figures showed in December that visitor numbers at Hong Kong Disneyland fell up to 23 per cent in its second year of operation. Visitors to the 15-year-old Euro Disney hit a record of 14.5 million in 2007. But the European operation was still in the red for a sixth straight year.

Tokyo Disneyland benefits from being in a nation that widely embraces U.S. pop culture and commonly accepts grown-ups, particularly women, pursuing the same passions as children.
Sociology professor Hideki Nakagawa, of Nihon University, said going to Disneyland has turned into a “fashion in itself” in Japan. “You feel superior if you go there many times, while it makes others feel they must go as well,” he said.