Legoland Japan in Nagoya is set to close for two days a week amidst speculation over poor ticket sales.
Legoland Japan opened in April this year. It’s the first Legoland theme park in Japan and the second in Asia. The park was projected to attract over two million visitors a year.
However there is now speculation over the success of the park, with visitor numbers much lower than anticipated.
The park was initially open seven days a week. The decision was made in June to close the park on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The official reason given was that it would offer maintenance crews time to do their work and would allow time off for service staff.
However the park has already shifted from this plan, with the attraction back running seven days a week as schools close down for the summer holidays. The end of August will see a return of the five day week but it will again be back to full-time opening for the whole of October (again tying in with the Japanese school year). The park’s diary shows that the seven-day weeks link with typically busy periods in the calendar.
A competitive market
So it seems most likely that it’s purely economic factors at work. Reports suggest that the attraction only reached 30 percent of its projected revenue goals for April. May showed an improvement but still fell short, only reaching 60 percent of projections.
Ticket prices have been cited as a concern from the start. They are comparable with those at the larger and better-known Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan. Although feedback for Legoland is generally good, pundits suggest visitors may be eschewing the new park in favour of its more sizeable and more established rivals. Some suggest that Legoland may need to rethink strategy with the possibility of lowering ticket prices.
The park includes several rides alongside a miniature world. This includes landmarks such as Nagoya Castle, Tokyo Station and Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto. Merlin Entertainments, who own the resort, have plans to build a Legoland Hotel and a Sea Life aquarium next to the park in 2018. The plans would turn the area into a resort at a cost of around 10 billion yen.
Image: Legoland.jp
