A Historical Perspective and Empirical Analysis on Development of Theme Parks in Japan

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to put modern history of theme park developments in Japan in perspective and identify the challenges associated with theme parks in Japan. Design/methodology/approach – Amid the structural lack of theme-park related operational and financial data, the authors approached the issue from the analyses of limited information on theme parks in Japan, where most, if any, of the available data are in Japanese only. This precluded the authors to conduct quantitative analyses of the parks in Japan. Findings – The authors found that two of the comparable large-scale theme park developments in Japan led to dramatically different operating results and that continued innovation of the contents of the park is one of the notable differences when the two parks are compared. Practical implications – The paper highlights the dramatic failure of one park, while in contrast the other thrives; underscoring that theme park investment is subject to embracing high-risk, high-maintenance and constant innovation efforts by the operator. Originality/value – The paper may be valuable to readers in the East Asian region and other nations which have plans to host large-scale theme park development in the near future, as this presents the rare cases of success and failure in theme park operations in Japan