Pink Panther said:
The infamous Tokyo queues must be when people have visited during public holidays/weekends.
No, the infamous Tokyo queues are because the park gets 17.3 million visitors annually. That's HUGE and is very clearly more than just a weekend and holiday market. Those kind of numbers just don't allow for quiet periods.
It's enormously popular with locals as it fits in with the whole bulls**t "kawaiiiiii!!" aesthetic that's so endemic there. I used to work at a Tokyo university, and the majority of my students (all female) had annual passes. Many people in Tokyo with passes will just call in for a few hours in the evening, which is very easy to do due to location and excellent transport links, and all of those will count towards the gate numbers.
Couple that with the fact that it's the cheapest Magic Kingdom park in terms of an on-the-gate, one-day ticket, and it's unsurprising that it gets huge visitor numbers. Just out of interest, here are the prices for the same type of ticket - a one-day, one-park ticket at each Magic Kingdom - in USD:
Tokyo: $55
Hong Kong: $64
Paris: $77
California: $99
Florida: $105
Not taking into account the value of the Yen against the dollar etc., the Tokyo park, which is closest to the Florida park in terms of size and attractions, is potentially around half the price.
Anyway, some other thoughts after looking at the report in more detail. Obviously my interest at the moment is more with the Asian parks, especially China, so I'll focus on that.
No real change in numbers with the 3 Asian Disney parks makes total sense as there's nothing new at any of them. I think the Tokyo parks are pretty much saturated to be honest and will stay around those numbers for a while. Hong Kong also hasn't opened anything new, but has managed a slight increase despite that, which is an excellent sign. Those numbers will stay around the same next year as well, maybe taking a slight dip, but should get a boost the following year after Iron Man Experience opens.
No surprise with the massive boost at Universal Japan after Harry Potter.
Songcheng Park is a bit of a pisstake to be honest. Their massive boost in numbers is mostly due to a huge, 5,000 seat theatre which has opened recently. By all accounts the show's spectacular, but personally I don't feel it's accurate to include it in the park visit numbers.
Ocean Kingdom breaking the worldwide top 20 in it's opening year is no surprise, and is great news with regards to the idea of the area becoming a multi-park resort. It's also great to see that the Chinese public is willing to pay top whack for a top-class theme park. As far as I can tell, it's the most expensive theme park by quite a long way in mainland China at around US$56. A lot of visitors will have a hotel/park/circus package, which is good as it shows that the Chinese are willing to visit these places as destinations in themselves.
It
is a little surprising though to think that one park has boosted the Chimelong Group into the top ten of worldwide operators. As a chain, they're still quite small in terms of number of attractions, though I guess those do include 2 of the busiest theme parks in Asia, (Paradise and Ocean Kingdom), a hugely popular safari park and the world's busiest water park. I'm assuming they're also including visitors to their circuses - one each attached to Paradise and Ocean Kingdom which are separately ticketed - into those figures as well. As I've been typing that, I've realised that it's not all that surprising at all.
It's interesting to note that only 1 Fantawild park broke the Asian top 20, though hardly surprising since they focus on "smaller" (no Chinese city where they operate is actually small) cities. From personal experience, their parks don't seem to ever get beyond mildly busy at best. It's also interesting to note that they've completely dropped out of the list of top park operators, despite opening more parks, though those might appear on next year's list thinking about how recently those places have opened.
. I'm also surprised by Disneyland Paris' result, any ideas on what caused the decrease?
