What were the reasons Disneyland was in Japan instead of Australia? -

I really think Japan is not the place for Disney. Well it isn t in my opinion. Australia should have had it and it nearly DID have Disneyland but then it went to Japan. Why? Japanese is not an international language at all, culture too westernised, the landscape isn t right either. Japan doesn t have a lot of tourism either. Was it mostly for Asians to visit?

Money. Tokyo Disneyland (and Paris and Hong Kong as well) isn t actually owned by Disney. Disney has a minority ownership of the park and the Disney name, characters, attractions, and Imagineers are all licensed and contracted. Disney is essentially paid by the Oriental Land Company (quot;OLCquot; - owners of Tokyo Disneyland) for the use of the Disney name. While you may not think that Japan is right for Disneyland, the park is amazing from what I ve seen online. Their parades are spectacular, their attractions more immersive and themed, and DisneySea is unlike any other park in the world. Part of the deal with Disney is that the OLC can t market the park outside of Japan which is why so few Westerners have heard of it. Added: the decision regarding EuroDisney (now Disneyland Paris) revolved around the same issue: Money. But also included the distance tourists would go to visit the park (Paris is more accessible to central Europe and Britain - pre Chunnel - is not) as well as weather. France agreed to put up the money and give a considerable discount on the land.

I think that them now deciding to build on in Shanghai is a mistake. Again Disney is going to be the minority with a 43% stake and the Shanghai government with the rest of the holding sounds like such a big mistake. I would have loved to see one in Australia and thought it would have benefited from it greatly. I think there is such a language barrier it would have been nice to have another theme park that there would not be a language barrier at. I am completely in agreement with you and have nothing against them but just see it as a upset for Disney !

It s called business. They go where the money is and japan is a significantly richer country than Australia. It s GDP is bigger than any country s except for the US. Tokyo is the richest city in the world. Just the economy of the city of tokyo alone is bigger than the entire nation of australia and new zealand... and Luxembourg combined. So you can imagine that the GDP of the whole of japan would eclipse any of those individual nations. (japan: 4.381trillion vs Australia 908billion) Japan has more spending power and is is just a bigger market in general. I m not sure why you think that it s a point against japan that it s westernized. If so then it should even be a bigger point against australia because it s even more westernized. japan actually gets more foreign tourists than australia. Australia got 5.58million tourists in 2008, Japan got 8.35million. And It s not just asians who are visiting japan. There are a lot of westerners who are into anime, jpop, jrock and japanese culture in general. Besides it s the local population that brings most of the money And just my opinion, I think japan is perfect for disneyland . It s the land of fantasy for a lot of people especially anime freaks. Japan itself looks like Disneyland. Try taking a walk through tokyo

Capital. Japan is the second world economy and Australia is not. Then, population and location. Japan is close to many Asian countries and has many traveling options. Australia doesn t. And as personal experience, it is easy to get a Japanese tourist Visa. Australia seems for me to be very strict.

More people in japan ad they get more money and Australia has a strong alliance with warner bros. Like warner bros Movieworld. And Aussie theme parks get a lot of interest from Japanese people so japan would make heaps more sense. And a lot of Australian parks have closed because the gold coast parks are really, really popular and they can t survive.