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Julian Ryall

The coming World Expo in Osaka, touted as a grand exhibition of futuristic culture, has struggled to attract visitors, with poor ticket sales highlighting broader issues of cost overruns, construction delays and waning public enthusiasm for large-scale events in ageing Japan.
Advance ticket sales for the expo have been so disappointing that the Japanese government is considering scrapping its policy of requiring them to be bought in advance and allowing visitors to pay to enter on the same day.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said authorities were looking into the matter after a meeting in Tokyo on Wednesday with Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura, who called for greater assistance from the national government to promote the mammoth event.
Tickets went on sale in November 2023 and organisers had anticipated they would be able to sell 14 million tickets for the six-month long event, which opens on April 13. But as of January 29, organisers admitted they had sold just 7.67 million tickets.
The slow uptake has stoked fears that if visitor numbers fail to meet expectations, taxpayers may once again be forced to bear the burden like they did with 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which lost out on the anticipated windfall from foreign visitors because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Before Osaka was nominated as the host city, the governor was reassuring everyone about the cost and that everything would go smoothly,” said Morinosuke Kawaguchi, a technology analyst and consultant who was previously a lecturer at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
“Everyone knew that was not true, but the decision had already been made and there was nothing left to say,” he told This Week in Asia.
“Big events like this, the Olympics and so on really should be done in countries where the under 30s account for the majority of the population because it is these people who are enthusiastic and want to take part,” he said.
“In Japan, the average age is now 50-something and these people are not interested in expos or huge sporting events; they want to know that their pensions are going to be paid in a few years and that they will have healthcare in the future.”

The expo, which has the theme “designing future society for our lives”, has been plagued with problems virtually since Osaka was named as the host city in 2018.
Concerns have centred on the ballooning cost of the sprawling event, which is being staged on a man-made island in Osaka Bay, with 158 countries and regions planning to take part and showcase their cultures.
However, a number of nations have already pulled out of the event, including Greece, Russia, Iran, El Salvador, Argentina and South Africa, for financial and other reasons.
There have also been delays and issues with the construction of the nations’ pavilions, in part due to Japan’s chronic shortage of workers in the building sector. As of January 19, just three of the 42 planned single-nation pavilions had been completed.
To mark 100 days before the official opening, a survey in January showed that just 24 per cent of Japanese people said they intended to go to the expo, down 3 percentage points from a similar survey in April of last year.
Ashley Harvey, a travel marketing analyst who has worked in Japan’s travel sector for more than 15 years, said Japan had approached the organisation of the expo in the same way as it did with other major international events, such as the Tokyo Olympics and the Rugby World Cup in 2019, choosing to overlook the problems those events experienced.
“The last World Expo was in Dubai and the organising committee was clearly led by Dubai, but the people they brought in to execute the event were the best in the world, no matter their nationality,” he said. “And what they got was an event that reflected that world view.
“But when you look at the organisers of the Osaka event, they are all Japanese and they all seem to be former government ministers, civil servants or from the big advertising agencies,” he pointed out.
“It is an inward-looking event when it should be outward-looking,” he said. “Of course, Japan is the host and that should be reflected in the tone and taste, but this should have been an opportunity to really put Osaka on the map, to bring the business world to the city and demonstrate why their companies need to be here.”

Harvey said significant effort had gone into staging the event, but little thought had been given to its long-term impact.
“The Tokyo Olympics and the Rugby World Cup should have been the starting point for those sports to grow and other opportunities to emerge, but Japan is poor when it comes to the legacy phase of these events.
“They become too bureaucratic and it becomes an exercise in ticking boxes,” he said. “If you look at Dubai’s expo in 2020, they are still reaping the tourism and business benefits of that today; I fear that in five years’ time, there will be no legacy of the Osaka expo.
“These events are hugely expensive and the taxpayers of Osaka have every right to ask what is the long-term impact of their money that went into the expo, but they would not be asking those questions if there was a clear legacy that was going to bring more business and tourism to their city.”
Kawaguchi is slightly more optimistic that Osaka and Japan as a whole could benefit from the expo – likely in unexpected ways.
“Nagano hosted the Winter Olympic Games in 1998 and the biggest sensation among the foreign visitors was heated toilet seats,” he said. “They are pretty normal for people in Japan, but for foreigners they were fantastic.
“I heard that as people were leaving Japan after the Games, everyone was asking to buy a heated toilet seat when they got to the duty-free section at Narita Airport,” he said.
Such practical applications of technology could leave a lasting impression on foreign visitors, he suggested, potentially increasing interest in Japan’s innovations and attracting more business and tourism.


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Delays, weak ticket sales, and cost overruns have cast doubt on the World Expo’s chances of success


Delays, weak ticket sales, and cost overruns have cast doubt on the World Expo’s chances of success.


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Osaka Expo’s ticket sales flop: will Japan’s futuristic fair be a financial failure?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Delays, weak ticket sales, and cost overruns have cast doubt on the World Expo’s chances of success

Delays, weak ticket sales, and cost overruns have cast doubt on the World Expo’s chances of success