Japan’s weekly tags: Disney
Tags: Travel, Tokyo, Japan, Disney, Weekly

In response to the new coronavirus outbreak in Japan, many famous Japanese museums, venues, performance and competitions have announced cancellations. After the Japanese Prime Minister request for all of the nation’s schools to be closed, Universal Studios Japan and Tokyo Disneyland announced that they would close from Saturday through to March 15.

Since those theme parks have been generating huge income for Japan

economy, the news is quite shocking. The last time Tokyo Disneyland was closed was due to a typhoon in October 2019.

Speaking of Tokyo Disneyland, in addition to being one of the most popular theme parks in the world, Tokyo Disneyland also has many unknown and interesting history and features.

Disneyland on the roof

Kakidai — 投稿者自身による作品, CC 表示-継承 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73189541による

Today, Tokyo Disneyland covers a vast area, with 17.9 million visitors in 2018. But who can imagine Tokyo Disneyland formerly was a small amusement park on the roof.

In May 1957, a facility named “Happy Disneyland” was built on the roof of Japan’s Mitsukoshi department store (Nihonbashi). This facility is actually a limited-term facility that has been contracted with Walt Disney. Of course, there are not only representative Cinderella castles but also merry-go-round and other rides.

Greatest regret of the Disney company

Although Tokyo Disneyland is called “Disneyland”, it is not directly operated by The Walt Disney Company, instead of Japan Oriental Land. But the Walt Disney Company still holds trademark rights and copyrights.

Don’t underestimate this decision. Although Tokyo Disneyland’s attendance is only the third in the world, second to California Disneyland and Florida Disneyland, the total income is far exceeds them. This also became the greatest regret of the smart businessman Disney company.

At that time, Japan actively proposed to Disney the idea of ​​building a Disneyland. However, because Disney was developing EPCOT at the time, and also worried about the risks of overseas investment, it proposed a cooperation method that is still used today. However, it is clear that Disney has overlooked Japanese consumer culture and marketing strategy magic.

Japan is very popular as a souvenir culture, and likes to give gifts to each other during the festival. They also love to buy souvenirs with local characteristics during the traveling. This interesting culture makes Tokyo Disney actively develop diversified products and gifts, and will launch new products according to seasons and festivals, becoming an important source of income for the park. Even the famous Duffy bear was introduced by the Tokyo Disneyland from the United States, at first it was just a simple bear beside Mickey.

Complete design drawing preservation system

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, when Tokyo Disneyland was built, Walt Disney was busy preparing for EPCOT, and there was no extra manpower, so Tokyo Disneyland was originally built with great reference to Florida Disneyland. However, because the design diagram of the facilities in the Florida Disneyland has not been changed after the improvement project, the diagram are significantly different from the existing facilities.

Therefore, Japanese engineers have visited Florida Disneyland many times, hoping to show the original appearance of Florida Disneyland as much as possible. The completed design diagrams are now kept in the “Document Management Center”, and the park will update the design drawings frequently, such a method of centralised management of design diagram is very rare at that time.