Ask your average Japanese citizen what their top gripe is today, and the answer will likely be taxes. As real wages remain frozen and prices continue to rise, people are complaining that the government continues to hike consumption taxes and health care payments, putting even more of a squeeze on the average taxpayer.
That’s why the recent news about World Expo 2025 Osaka Kansai isn’t sitting well with local residents. Many were already outraged when an Osaka city official said the current burden for the event would come out to around 27,000 yen (USD $172) per resident.
Now, it seems the event is well short of meeting its goals for ticket sales – and taxpayers are expected to pick up the tab.
We’ve covered before how sales for the event were very slow among foreign tourists as well as residents of Japan. Things haven’t gotten any better. Recent reports say that, since selling the expected 7 million tickets within the business community, sales have plummeted.
Tickets were expected to cover 80 percent of the event’s 11.6 billion yen ($737M) cost. If the prefecture doesn’t make its goal, it’ll have to throw taxpayer money into the hole to cover the deficit.
The current goal for sales is 23 million advance tickets, with a projected total attendance of 28.2 million people. As of December 18th, however, the event’s only sold 7.44 million tickets – half of their expected goal at this point.
The event was managing to sell some 400K tickets a week in September. Since then, sales have dropped to a mere 30,000 weekly.
Gendai Digital reports that the event’s also racing to restock collaboration goods it’s been selling on its website to entice ticket sales. Collaborations include special goods from the Hanshin Tigers baseball team as well as Sanrio. However, as of today, 36 of the special goods the site’s selling are listed as sold out.
Can the event recover in time? A new survey says: not likely. The survey by Mitsubishi Research Institute shows interest in the event is steadily declining. As of April 2024, only 27% of people polled nationwide said they wanted to go. That number dropped to 24% in the most recent survey conducted in October.
Interest in the event remains highest in the immediate region. However, even that’s dropping off. In April, 43.5% of those polled in the surrounding Keihanshin region (comprising Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe) wanted to go. That number’s dropped to 36.3% in just six months.
Expo 2025 will run from April 13th to October 13th, 2025. Popular pop singer Ado will kick off the opening event.
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