Ticketer Leaves China

Pia, Japan’s largest ticket agency, has announced that it will withdraw from the Chinese market and also cut back on its wedding business operations as part of ongoing restructuring activities.

Pia Asia Pacific Co., located in Hong Kong, will close at the end of the year. The company was launched in 2005 to sell tickets in China but sales have not been as good as initially hoped.

Pia’s wedding magazine, launched in 1992, will suspend publication in March. Another magazine called Invitation, which handles culture in general, will also be pulled, thus leaving three periodicals under the company’s publishing umbrella.

Pia’s mainstay events magazines, which cover various areas of Japan, have already been extensively redesigned to take better advantage of the Internet.

The company says it hopes to return to profitability next year by putting most of its resources into its domestic ticket business and eliminating peripheral operations.