April - Sept - Disney Customers 17% down

The combined number of visitors to Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea in the April-September period dived 17.1 percent from a year earlier to 10.74 million, the sharpest fall on a half-year basis since Tokyo Disneyland opened in 1983, the operator of the theme parks said Monday.

But the number of visitors in the July-September period was the highest on record for the three-month period, Oriental Land Co. said.

It attributed the plunge for the six months to September to the theme parks' temporary closure following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The number of visitors for the six-month period was the smallest since the year from April 2002, just after DisneySea's opening in September 2001.

Oriental Land attributed the strong recovery in visitors in the July-September period to the nightly Fantasmic! attraction on the waters of the Mediterranean Harbor area of DisneySea, introduced this spring, which proved to be a megahit.

The number of visitor "is now on track to recovery," an Oriental Land official said.

The company did not release a projection for the number of visitors for the entire financial year to next March on the grounds that it is necessary to continue monitoring the impact from the March 11 calamity.