TDS sets record as quickest to 10 Million Visitors

[Bstanley]

Intercot has a posting containing an OLC press release claiming that Tokyo Disney Seas welcomed it's 10,000,000 visitor on Sunday July 7 after only 307 days of operation. This beat the previous record set by Universal Studios Osaka by 31 days.

That's a whopping 32,500 people a day - if they keep it up they'll hit right at 12 Million visitors their first year.

 

[YoHo]

I'm sure Micheal is thrilled with this news.

 

[toefungus]

And what were California Adventure's numbers for it's first 307 days? Has it even hit the 10 milion visitor mark yet?

 

[airlarry!]

I'm curious.

Has DCA hit 10 million yet? I would bet it still hasn't hit 6-7 million yet.

Opening date: Feb 2001. Capacity: About 20k.

 

[raidermatt]

I don't think so. If I remember correctly, Amusement Business had it at 5 million last year. That would be March thru Dec, or 10 months.

I can't see any way in heck that its drawn another 5 million in only 6+ months this year. In fact, if the 5 million number is accurate, I'd give it 50/50 of reaching 10 million by 12/31/02.

 

[Another Voice]

You won’t ever see an announcement about DCA hitting 10 million guests. Disney would be required to back that statement up (this is not the time for a publicly traded company to be fudging information) so it’s much easier to let the Amusement Business estimates stand and let people assume.

Of course the “rumor” is that California Adventure’s 10 millionth guests will probably enjoy riding ‘Tower of Terror’. Of course, the 10 millionth paying guest will probably be there for Disneyland’s 50th Anniversary celebration and not really DCA at all.


P.S. – the corporate spinners are already out on the web to downplay the DisneySea story. The current company line is that the park has had a serious slowdown in attendance now that the “newness” has worn off. It’s pretty much of a lie, but it makes the people in Burbank feel better.

 

[Bob O]

See what attendance can be when a park is built to be a full day park from day one!!!
Now if only disney would do thise state side.

 

[lrodk]

See what attendance can be when a park is built to be a full day park from day one!!!

Alot of Disney fans don't realize that Eisner did in fact build a full day park when they opened Euro Disney in 1992. In it's first full year of operation DLP drew 10 million guests.

 

[Another Voice]

Of course, Euro Disney wasn't built entirely with Disney money either.

Anyone spot a trend?

 

[All Aboard]

See what attendance can be when a park is built to be a full day park from day one!!!

Since the previous record holder was also in Japan, I'd venture to guess that location is a factor in this equation as well.

 

[Bstanley]

With Japan being roughly the size of California with a population of about 130 million - and with a marvelous rail infrastructure so that if they were afraid to fly they could certainly flood their local entertainment venues - and being located on the Kanto plain doesn't hurt (40-50 million people close by) you could certainly say that location had something to do with it....

But the fact is that there are a LOT of amusement venues in Japan - they were built during the 'Bubble Economy' (a Japanese term to describe the late Eighties early Nineties) - and they are not doing well at all. In fact the only 2 parks in Japan that are posting profits lately are TDS/TDL and USO...

OLC posted a 168% percent growth in NET profit during the just closed fiscal year compared to the previous year and expects NET growth this fiscal year (just started) to be up abother 80% - in fact analysts are claiming that OLC is 'sandbagging' this year's growth prediction - they're predicting NET to be up another 100%!

Ya gotta love OLC management - when interviewed about TDS's success they said that to keep people coming back they plan to re-invest $100M a year into new attractions and shows.

 

[Bob O]

But the parks mentioned arent stateside parks. The last 3 parks built in the US-MGM/AK/DCA werent of the scope of Eurodisney/TDS and the attendanced difference between them is easy to see.