Executive Summary
The World Expo 2025 was held in Osaka, Japan, from 13 April to 13 October 2025 on the artificial island of Yumeshima. 158 countries and 7 international organisations participated under the main theme "Designing Future Society for Our Lives". Over 184 days, the event was visited by a total of 29.02 million people – of which 3.44 million were accreditation-pass holders and 25.58 million were paying visitors. A total of 22.07 million tickets were sold across various categories (including long-term passes), 4 million above the organiser's original plan of 18 million.
According to the official report, the share of foreign visitors reached approximately 6.9% – about 2 million people from 183 countries, significantly less than the running estimates of 10-15% during the event. Visitors from the Czech Republic ranked 24th with a 0.62% share, i.e. approximately 12,400 people. Overall visitor satisfaction reached 74.9% (out of 1.19 million survey respondents), and 92.8% on the final day.
The economic impact was assessed in December 2025 by two independent studies: the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) reported approximately JPY 3.6 trillion (~USD 22.7 bn / EUR 21 bn), while the Asia Pacific Institute of Research (APIR) together with the Kansai Tourism Bureau arrived at JPY 3.05 trillion (~USD 19.6 bn / EUR 18 bn). Both studies significantly exceeded their own 2024 forecasts. The main driver was higher per-capita spending – particularly by foreign visitors (JPY 390,000 during their stay vs. JPY 210,000 for the average tourist) – and strong sales of merchandise featuring the Myaku-Myaku mascot (JPY 1.64 trillion, more than half of the entire APIR estimate).
The organiser projects an operating profit of JPY 32-37 bn (~USD 200-235 m) despite a construction budget that grew from JPY 125 to 235 bn (+88%) and operating expenses that rose from the planned JPY 80.9 to 116 bn (+43%). The construction budget was shared between the central government, Osaka prefecture and city, and the business sector. Additional government expenditure reached ~JPY 83.7 bn (~USD 530 m), of which JPY 24 bn went to support pavilions from developing countries.
World Expo 2025 was a success. Operationally and in terms of economic impact, the exposition exceeded expectations. The main risks remain in the uneven distribution of benefits – Osaka Prefecture strongly dominated, while the effect on the rest of the Kansai region was, according to APIR, limited. The long-term impact will be largely defined by the realisation of the MGM Osaka project (opening 2030) and the Kansai region's ability to translate temporary tourist interest into sustained regional dynamism.
Geographic and Sectoral Impact
The two studies from December 2025 are broadly consistent in order of magnitude but differ methodologically to a degree that they cannot be directly interchanged. METI works with a broader definition and includes multiplier effects across all of Japan – including indirect expenditure of supply-chain employees and induced demand in sectors not directly related to the Expo. APIR and the Kansai Tourism Bureau, by contrast, are narrower geographically and thematically, focused on effects in the Kansai region directly tied to the Expo, and draw more "bottom-up" from microdata on actual spending.
For a sense of scale: annual inbound spending in Osaka Prefecture alone reached JPY 1.6 trillion in 2025. This means the Expo added the equivalent of roughly 1-2 annual aggregates to the "normal" tourism flow – though a large share of METI's figure is allocated to indirect sectors and other regions. Neither study comprehensively addresses impacts on the regional labour market; as of the publication date, no publicly available ex-post audit on this question exists.
Tourism and accommodation
Japan recorded a record 42.7 million foreign visitors in 2025 (+15.8% year-on-year), with Osaka Prefecture alone counting 17.6 million – a historical record and YoY growth of approximately 3 million. The key capacity enabler was the significant infrastructure expansion of Kansai International Airport (KIX): in March 2025, hourly slot capacity was raised from 45 to 60 approaches (+33%), international terminal capacity from 23 to 40 million passengers annually, and KIX closed fiscal year 2025 with 27.08 million international passengers (+~8% YoY) – foreign passengers exceeded 20 million for the first time in history.
Hotels: Osaka Prefecture closed 2025 with an average occupancy rate of 78.8%, the highest in Japan, and a historical record of 57.6 million overnight stays. The Average Daily Rate (ADR) in Osaka rose by 31% YoY for the full year 2025, with main hotels in Q2 2025 reaching prices 30-40% above the same period in 2024. However, the pricing pressure had ambiguous consequences: high prices pushed some foreign guests out to Kyoto and Kobe, which paradoxically explains the YoY decline in foreign overnight stays directly in Osaka of 4.7%, despite the Expo. This confirms APIR's repeated reservation about the limited structural spillover into the wider Kansai.
Construction costs in context
The Expo's construction budget rose from JPY 125 to 235 bn and was the loudest point of criticism. On closer examination, however, this increase must be interpreted in the context of industry-wide inflation: the construction-materials price index in Japan rose by approximately 18% between FY2021 and March 2024, and an estimated further +5.6% construction-cost inflation occurred in 2025. Added to this was a chronic shortage of skilled workers and a weak yen. The Expo construction budget cannot be assessed as an isolated management failure but as a reflection of the macro environment that every construction project in Japan faced during the period.
For comparison with similar mega-projects, the 88% budget increase of Expo 2025 is substantially better than typical figures for global mega-events. An Oxford Saïd Business School study reports that every Olympic Games since 1960 has overrun its budget, on average by 172% in real terms – the highest rate of budget slippage of all categories of public infrastructure. In this light, the Expo 2025 overrun is below average for this class of event.
Critically, the budget slippage did not worsen the project's overall balance sheet. The organiser projects an operating profit of JPY 32-37 bn despite the higher cost base, attendance surpassed break-even by 4 million tickets, and the ex-post economic impact exceeded the 2024 forecasts even with the increased budget. Moreover, the construction budget was three-way shared, so no single payer bore a disproportionate burden.
The lasting legacy of capital expenditure is also significant: the extension of the Osaka Metro Chūō line to Yumeshima (opened 13 January 2025), the KIX terminal and slot expansion, and the groundwork for the MGM Osaka project represent infrastructure assets with a decades-long lifespan – assets that, without the momentum of the exposition, would likely have been delivered with a substantially longer time horizon, if at all.
Long-term Effects
According to academic literature and ex-post audits by the OECD and BIE, the long-term impact of a World Exposition manifests in four layers:
- Physical legacy (e.g. infrastructure)
- Institutional legacy (e.g. organisations, partnerships, regulatory frameworks)
- Reputational legacy (e.g. destination attractiveness)
- Technological legacy (e.g. an accelerator of products and innovation)
The measure of success is not primarily the immediate economic impact, but the ability to sustain at least several of these layers for another 10-20 years after the event. Through this lens, Expo 2025 is at the beginning of the verification phase as of mid-2026.
Reputational dimension. Visitor satisfaction of 74.9% (last day 92.8%) is above average in the context of recent expositions. According to a survey of 1,058 Japanese companies, 23.4% of respondents stated that the Expo "exceeded expectations" and 44% that it "met" them; in Kansai specifically, 81.3% of firms reported a positive effect – the highest share in the country. The venue was visited by 91 heads of state and leaders from 79 countries, and the event attracted 2,300 corporate donors and 924 corporate partners. Experience from Shanghai (2010), Milan (2015) and Dubai (2020) shows that without follow-on marketing effort the brand uplift lasts approximately 2-4 years. The Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau has set a target of 18+ million foreign visitors for 2026.
Physical infrastructure is the least disputed and most measurable long-term benefit. The main economic anchor is the MGM Osaka project – Japan's first integrated resort (casino + hotel + MICE), which takes over most of the Yumeshima venue. With a planned investment of ~USD 10 bn (MGM Resorts + ORIX), a 27-storey tower, 1,840 rooms, and a 23,293 m² casino, it represents one of the largest foreign direct investments in modern Japanese history. Opening is scheduled for 2030, with more than 40% of pile foundations completed by January 2026. For Kansai, this is a structural transfer of "temporary Expo capital" into permanent capital – and the key reason why the years 2028-2032 will be decisive for evaluating the true long-term impact of Expo 2025.
The institutional and innovation layer is the least clear and most dependent on follow-on political will. The most visible initiative is the Kansai Economic Federation (Kankeiren) vision from March 2026, which sets a target of operating ~100 eVTOL aircraft in the Osaka Bay area by 2035 as a follow-up to the urban air-mobility demonstration at the Expo. Clusters are also developing in life sciences (Osaka Healthcare Pavilion), advanced materials, and robotics.
The weakness is the absence of a comprehensive development strategy of the "Kansai Vision 2040" type, one that would coordinately tie together MGM Osaka, the eVTOL vision, technology clusters, university research, and foreign-investment policy into a single framework with measurable KPIs. Without this institutional "glue" (exactly what was missing after Expo 1970) – there is a risk that the relationships established, technological partnerships, and interest of foreign companies will begin to dissipate after 2027.
Historical Parallel: Lessons from Expo 1970
In the period immediately after Expo 1970, the Kansai region accounted for approximately 25% of Japan's GDP with a population share of about 20% – the region was "punching above its weight" and Osaka was competing with Tokyo for the position of the country's industrial heart. Expo 1970 marked the symbolic commercial debut of a number of products that today are taken-for-granted attributes of modern Japan: canned coffee, industrially produced yoghurt, the first public demonstration of the mobile phone at the NTT pavilion, the local area network (LAN), and commercially deployed moving walkways. The event welcomed 64 million visitors and 77 countries.
Figure 1: Share of the Kansai region and Tokyo in Japan’s population and GDP (1960-2025). While Tokyo has built its economic dominance beyond its population share since the 1970s, Kansai has since the mid-2000s fallen below the threshold of an “above-average contributor”. Source: compiled from METI Kansai and APIR data.
Half a century later, the picture is radically different. Kansai's share of Japan's GDP has fallen to approximately 16% with a population share of ~17% – the region has stopped "punching above its weight". Tokyo, meanwhile, has grown from 22% of GDP (1960) to ~35% of GDP (2025).
The causes are partly structural-macroeconomic, but according to APIR also directly tied to the legacy of Expo 1970: the stimulus the event brought was temporary and did not translate into sustained growth, because the event did not sit within a comprehensive regional development strategy that would have secured follow-on political and investment support.
When the Expo ended, the short-term boost left with it – and the region as a whole returned to a mildly declining trajectory.
Conclusion and Recommendations
For foreign-company participants in the exposition, a relatively narrow window of opportunity is opening. The Kansai region commands economic output comparable to mid-sized European countries (approximately 16% of Japan's GDP, i.e. roughly equivalent to the economy of Sweden, Belgium or the Netherlands), but at significantly lower operating costs than Tokyo — office rents, labour costs, and real-estate prices in Osaka are persistently 30-50% lower than in the capital. For companies considering entry into the Japanese market, Kansai represents an ideal "gateway": an economy large enough for meaningful business operations, but with lower entry cost, greater willingness of regional partners to enter bilateral collaboration, and — in the period immediately following the Expo — above-average visibility for international business.
Key recommendation for local authorities: The leadership of the City of Osaka and Osaka Prefecture should actively offer conditions that make this moment economically attractive for foreign companies — tax incentives for new investments from partner countries of the exposition, simplified access to qualified labour, subsidised coworking and R&D spaces under a "Kansai International Innovation Hub", and systemic support for translation and legal services for international SMEs. Without an active incentive policy, there is a risk that the interest generated by the Expo will be captured by other regions — primarily Tokyo, which traditionally absorbs most international attention — and Kansai will again find itself in the position of "a successful host from which someone else ultimately profits in the long term", much as happened after Expo 1970.
The structural transformation of MGM Osaka (2030), the Kankeiren vision of 100 eVTOL aircraft (2035), and the metro extension to Yumeshima provide physical and institutional anchors. But without a comprehensive long-term strategy — Kansai Vision 2040 — with measurable KPIs in the areas of foreign investment, talent migration, and internationalisation of local firms, they will remain only islands of success in a sea of slowly fading opportunity.
The next three years will be decisive for Kansai.