Oriental Land Co., Ltd.—Tokyo Disney Resort

This case describes the history of Oriental Land Co. Ltd.’s (OLC's) Tokyo Disney Resort (TDR), its operations, the extent of vertical integration, and the challenges it faced in 2018 as OLC's chairman and CEO, Toshio Kagami, contemplated how best to deal with congestion in the park. As of 2018, Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea, the two parks that comprised TDR, were the only Disney parks not owned and operated by Disney. Instead, OLC paid royalties to Disney based on the parks’ revenue (in yen). The parks were immensely popular, but OLC had begun to see lower customer satisfaction ratings in recent years as high attendance led to long wait times. Although it continuously added new attractions to TDR, the company now faced a dilemma regarding how to expand further, given the limited land available around the parks. Kagami also considered whether to focus on OLC's other businesses, such as hotels, and even its nascent agriculture business, which it used to grow food served in the two parks.