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.
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.
