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Junglia nature adventure park in Okinawa to open July 25

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Park aims to take advantage of boom in overseas tourists

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Startup hopes park will be stepping stone into other Asia

markets

By Rocky Swift and Kentaro Okasaka

TOKYO, May 20 (Reuters) - The company behind a new

nature adventure park on Japan's southern island of Okinawa is

hoping the country's huge tourism boom will get it off to a

raring start, and that with time propel the startup further into

Asia and other markets.

Junglia, a 60-hectare site built on an old golf course and

featuring more than 20 attractions from a hot air balloon ride

and buggy riding to treetop walking and a "Dinosaur Safari", is

set to open on July 25.

Costing some 70 billion yen ($634 million), the park is the

brainchild of Tsuyoshi Morioka, chief executive of entertainment

firm Katana. Morioka, a theme park veteran, is credited with

turning around flagging attendance at Universal Studios Japan

(USJ) in Osaka, western Japan, by bringing in Harry

Potter-themed attractions.

Japan is experiencing an unprecedented boom in tourism,

fuelled by a weaker yen, with overseas visitors climbing 47% to

a record 36.9 million last year. Their spending shot up 53% to

8.1 trillion yen ($55.6 billion), making tourism - which counts

as an export in GDP data - the country's second biggest export

sector after cars.

The Japanese also love a good theme park with Tokyo's Disney ( DIS )

resorts having enduring success and USJ, despite some

early financial woes, proving popular. That said, many parks

have also failed.

Yu Shioji, the chairman of the Amusement Park Society of

Japan, believes Junglia will have "almost no chance" of

long-term success given that there are other nature adventure

parks in Japan and its relatively high cost - 6,930 yen ($48)

per day pass for locals and 8,800 yen ($60) for international

visitors.

While acknowledging long odds for long-term profitability

for any amusement park, Morioka - who considers himself a maths

nerd - said that by his calculations, Junglia has more than a

70% chance of success.

He expects several thousand visitors a day to Junglia and

says it can be profitable even if it only garners half the

number of visitors of the nearby Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium,

which has around 3 million per year.

Morioka added that demand for theme parks and higher

value-added tourism services in Japan is here to stay, given

that many Asian countries are growing wealthier.

"The weak yen is a tailwind, but the number of people who

want to visit Japan will increase structurally regardless of the

currency effect," he said.

The Japanese government has said it wants to boost the

number of overseas visitors to 60 million per year by 2030.

If Junglia is successful, Morioka says developing smaller

attractions that cost less than 100 billion yen, unlike mega

theme parks like Disney's ( DIS ) and USJ, could be easily replicated in

other Asian markets like Taiwan and Indonesia.

Listing Katana would be an option to fund future growth, he

said, adding that he saw a lot of potential for theme parks

built around Japanese anime if he can convince content creators

to license their intellectual property.

"I think it would be good if there was a third option in

cities around the globe after Disney ( DIS ) and Universal," said

Morioka. "I want to develop niches where they can't go and

create a third force in attractions in the world that originates

from Japan."

($1 = 144.84 yen)