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Competition between Japan's two major theme park giants

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2025-01-12

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Author | Masaru Nagano

Editor-in-chief | Yang Ming

Editor | Liu Kaiye

Source | Jun Zhiqingzuo

The competition between Japan's two major theme park giants, Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan, has never ceased......

Universal Studios Japan Opens “Japan's Most Popular Theme Park” Defense War

According to the "2023 Global Theme Parks and Museums Report," among the top 25 theme parks in the world with the most visitors, the Magic Kingdom in Orlando, USA, and Disneyland in California, USA, still rank first and second. The other park that has entered the "top three" is Universal Studios Japan (USJ). Universal Studios Japan has defeated Tokyo Disneyland (TDL) for two consecutive years, becoming the theme park with the most annual visitors in Japan and the Asia-Pacific region.

After the announcement of the 2023 rankings, it reinforced the belief that Universal Studios Japan is indeed a "strong contender." Universal Studios Japan also continued to widen the gap with Tokyo Disneyland, expanding from a 350,000 visitor gap in 2022 to 900,000 in 2023, achieving a successful defense with impressive results.

Tokyo Disneyland and Visitor Numbers of Universal Studios Japan Comparative Analysis of Change Trends

Extracting the past admission numbers of Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan from the report, we further analyze the visitor number trends of these two parks since 2007. To make the analysis clearer and easier to understand, we also include data from Tokyo DisneySea (TDS).

(TDL is the abbreviation for Tokyo Disneyland; USJ is the abbreviation for Universal Studios Japan; TDS is the abbreviation for Tokyo DisneySea)

The annual number of visitors to Tokyo DisneySea was once higher than that of Universal Studios Japan. However, after 2022, Universal Studios Japan surpassed the long-leading Tokyo Disneyland, and in 2023, USJ achieved its highest annual visitor numbers since its opening.

(1) Universal Studios Japan's Strongest Customer Acquisition Month of the Year

Comparing the visitor numbers of the three parks by month (since the parks have not released specific monthly visitor data, the following calculations are based on published data, information, and trend analysis), the chart below shows that both Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan had outstanding performance in March. Although March is a strong month for both parks in terms of customer acquisition, in 2023, Universal Studios Japan's performance in March was particularly strong, laying the foundation for ultimately surpassing Tokyo Disneyland in visitor numbers.

Tokyo Disneyland made a strong push in the "Halloween + Christmas" celebration season after October, and the number of visitors temporarily surpassed Universal Studios Japan, but ultimately failed to reverse the trend.

The chart above shows a comparison of the monthly visitor numbers of Tokyo Disneyland in 2023 and 2019, the year it achieved its highest ever visitor numbers. It is not difficult to see that a significant increase in visitor numbers in March seems to be key to securing good annual results.

Let's take a look at the performance of Universal Studios Japan in other years compared to 2018, 2019, when it had excellent visitor numbers, and 2022, when it first won the title of Japan's most visited park.

From the comparison of the cumulative trend of monthly visitor numbers at USJ shown in the chart above, the park saw a significant increase in visitor numbers in March 2023 and after October.

It can be said that March and October are months when the two parks roll out their big guns to attract customers, and Universal Studios Japan secured victory in March.

(2) Differences in March Customer Acquisition Ability

The main reason for the difference in visitor numbers between the two parks in 2023 is the "difference in March customer acquisition ability." Let's look at the daily visitor numbers of Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan in March.

From the chart above, we can see that the number of visitors to Tokyo Disneyland began to increase from March 20th, which fully reflects the strong customer gathering effect of "Spring Break" (Japan's Spring Break is a holiday for students in spring, usually from the end of March to early April). After entering March, Universal Studios Japan maintained high visitor numbers throughout the month, regardless of weekdays or weekends. The few days with a drop in visitor numbers were due to rain.

Let's look at the visitor changes in March 2019 for the two parks. The chart above shows that in 2019, the annual number of visitors to Tokyo Disneyland reached its peak. In that year, both Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan saw an increase in visitor numbers after March 20th (the start of Spring Break). However, Universal Studios Japan did not achieve the state of maintaining high visitor numbers throughout March as it did in 2023, so Tokyo Disneyland still won that year.

(3) Analysis of Peak and Off-Peak Ratios by Month

Let's look at the peak and off-peak ratios of the two parks in March 2023. The peak and off-peak ratio is calculated as "(highest number of admissions in a month) ÷ (lowest number of admissions in a month)". A smaller number indicates a less significant difference between peak and off-peak periods, meaning that the number of visitors does not change significantly regardless of weekdays or weekends.

According to the chart above, the months in which the peak and off-peak ratios of Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan decreased in 2023 are:

Tokyo Disneyland: March, July, November, December

Universal Studios Japan: March, July, October

The peak and off-peak ratio for Universal Studios Japan in March and October is approximately 2.0, which is a very small number. This means that even on weekdays in March and October, USJ was almost as crowded as on holidays.

So, what did USJ rely on to attract large numbers of visitors on weekdays in March and October?

USJ in March offered a continuous stream of exciting content:

Super Nintendo World maintained its high popularity

The Harry Potter area opened a new limited-time experience starting in March “Encounter with Magical Creatures～”

Cherry Blossom Season "NO LIMIT! Parade" Participatory Parade Event Get the whole place hyped up

Spring Offer (Large-scale discount event for students in Spring 2023) Event starts

In addition to the ongoing regular events mentioned above, the limited-time popular IP events also contributed to the continuous increase in visitor traffic. For example, popular anime appeared one after another in the "COOL JAPAN" event.

The 2023 limited-time events included the following popular anime IPs:

Jujutsu Kaisen (Ongoing since September 2022)

Spy × Family

Doraemon

Monster Hunter

Detective Conan

In addition, in October 2023, USJ restarted the "Halloween Horror Nights" event for the first time in four years since 2019. Songs by popular artist ADO were used in dance performances, and the long-awaited Halloween event also became a traffic engine.

Due to these unprecedented investments, Universal Studios Japan was able to continuously attract a large number of visitors on both weekdays and weekends.

Daily visitor numbers at the two parks Trend of changes

The daily visitor numbers of Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan in 2023 are arranged in descending order. As shown in the figure below, the greater the difference in visitor traffic between Universal Studios Japan and Tokyo Disneyland on peak days, the better the annual visitor traffic performance of Universal Studios Japan.

The daily visitor numbers of Universal Studios Japan in 2023 and 2019 are arranged in descending order. As shown in the figure below, the difference in visitor traffic on peak days between the two years is significant. This may be because after the opening of the Super Nintendo World in 2021, the area available for visitors to play at USJ increased, so the upper limit of the number of visitors that can be accommodated also expanded. In other words, the park's capacity to accommodate visitors in 2023 expanded compared to 2019, so more visitors could be accommodated during peak periods.

(1) Customer group analysis

The fact that a large number of visitors were attracted even on weekdays in March and October seems to be the reason for USJ's success this time. However, the visitors who could visit during this period were mainly students. In particular, university students and high school seniors, who entered spring break from early March, drove the number of visitors to USJ.

Another factor is that the customer base of Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan consists not only of local customers but also a considerable number of out-of-town customers. The opening of "Super Nintendo World" was very effective in helping USJ attract a large number of out-of-town customers.

It is very likely that young people who originally went to Tokyo Disneyland turned to USJ due to the influence of anime content and Super Nintendo World.

From this perspective, the sharp decline in the proportion of 18-39 year-old visitors in Tokyo Disneyland's customer base in 2023 seems to have a reasonable explanation.

(2) Investment effect analysis of Super Nintendo World

We don't believe that all visitors to Universal Studios Japan in 2023 came for "Super Nintendo World," but considering the visitor traffic situation before 2019, it is undeniable that the 16 million visitors in 2023 were indeed affected by the expansion of the park due to the opening of "Super Nintendo World."

The investment in "Super Nintendo World" exceeded 60 billion yen (approximately 2.83 billion RMB). Before the area opened, the maximum number of visitors to USJ was 14.94 million in 2017, which means that the annual visitor traffic of USJ in 2023 increased by more than 1 million compared to before the opening of "Super Nintendo World." In other words, the investment in "Super Nintendo World" is allocated to each visitor at approximately 60,000 to 70,000 yen (approximately 3,000-3,500 RMB). When USJ opened, it invested 180 billion yen (approximately 8.5 billion RMB), and the annual number of visitors at that time was approximately 10 million, so the investment allocated to each visitor was 18,000 yen (approximately 900 RMB). In other words, the investment per visitor in "Super Nintendo World" is about four times that of the opening.

Tokyo Disney Resort invested 320 billion yen (approximately 15 billion RMB) in the "Fantasy Springs" project, which will open in 2024, and is expected to increase revenue by 70 billion yen (approximately 3.3 billion RMB) per year. According to the financial report released by Oriental Land Co., Ltd. (the operator of Tokyo Disney Resort) for fiscal year 2023, the average spending per visitor at Tokyo Disneyland is 16,565 yen (approximately 780 RMB). Therefore, to achieve the target, the resort needs to increase visitor traffic by 4.23 million per year. If calculated using the average investment amount, each visitor needs to bear approximately 75,726 yen (approximately 3,600 RMB), which is comparable to the average investment scale required for "Super Nintendo World."

Special Survey on Investment in the Tourism Industry

To gain a deeper understanding of the investment and development of the tourism industry, the China Tourism Academy, in conjunction with the China Amusement Machine and Amusement Park Association and other organizations, is conducting a special survey on investment in the tourism industry. We sincerely invite all member units and tourism enterprises to participate in the survey.

▲Scan the QR code to fill out the questionnaire

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