Visitors to Tokyo Disney parks fall 17% in H1

Visitors to Tokyo Disney parks dipped 17 percent year-on-year in the April-September period due to a temporary closure after the March earthquake and tsunami, the operator said Monday. Oriental Land Co., the operator of the Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea theme parks, said the number of visitors during the six months to September fell 17.1 percent from a year earlier to 10.74 million. The company was forced to close Tokyo Disneyland for five weeks and DisneySea for longer after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis struck on March 11. But the number of visitors recovered to a record high during the second quarter to September "when various special events and new programmes were implemented and consumer confidence began to return," it said in a statement. The company does not disclose detailed numbers on a quarterly basis. The March 11 disasters damaged the carpark and a major Tokyo Disneyland attraction, "Big Thunder Mountain."