SASEBO, Nagasaki Pref. (Kyodo) Struggling theme park Huis Ten Bosch reopened Wednesday just in time for the start of the Golden Week holidays.
Some 250 staff welcomed visitors in front of the main gate in Sasebo, with Hideo Sawada, president of the operator, saying, "I hope we will be loved by local people."
Sawada, also chairman of travel agency H.I.S. Co., which is leading the theme park's rehabilitation effort, said he is counting on 100,000 visitors during Golden Week through early May. The park drew only 70,000 people during the Golden Week holiday last year.
Huis Ten Bosch, which replicates a Dutch cityscape, opened in 1992. It went bankrupt and filed for court protection from creditors in 2003 amid declining attendance.
