The World & I Magazine

Issue Date: January 1997

The park includes shops, restaurants, a marina, and a lodge for overnight guests. It occupies one-quarter of a man-made island that was built by the Yokohama city government; the rest of the island is dedicated to parkland. Recycled earth from city construction projects was used to reclaim the island from the bay. The theme park has only 150 full-time employees and is privately owned. There is ready access by road and monorail. Less than 1 percent of the park's visitors come by ferry, which runs twenty times a day. The main market is Japanese: The park is not promoted overseas, and no statistics are available on foreign visitors touring the park. However, Taiwanese tourists are not uncommon, and U.S. servicemen and their families from a nearby air base do visit.

My Way-ism and leisure choices

The enormous popularity of theme parks was demonstrated last summer when a World Theme Park Fair, primarily a trade show featuring ninety exhibits, was held in Yokohama. Around 150,000 people attended the show during its four-day public opening. Exhibitors came from Japan and countries that are popular vacation attractions for Japanese travelers. The fair was held in direct response to the changing leisure demands of the Japanese.

A warm greeting is offered to all from exhibitors at the World Theme Park Fair in Yokohama.

Currently, more than 70 percent of the population lives in urban areas, and that figure is projected to climb as high as 85 percent, possibly as soon as the turn of the century. With that massive urbanization is coming a major change in popular ways of thinking. As the population is increasingly successful in its pursuit of material wealth, unprecedented levels of personal independence are being established. Greater individual financial security is being matched by an increasing sense of personal independence.

Loyalty to groups or companies and dependence on those groups as the basis for all acceptable leisure activities are declining. Admittedly, this phenomenon is only slowly emerging; group participation and identification are still remarkably strong. Vacation parks are crowded with easily identified groups wearing identical hats, ponchos, or raincoats, obediently following flag-or board-carrying guides. Nevertheless, a great many individual or family visitors can always be seen.

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