travel

How to draw tourists to Japan

7 Comments
By Kathryn Wortley for BCCJ ACUMEN

Promote regional gems: that is one of the strategies being adopted by the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) to attract more inbound visitors. The approach is in striking synergy with plans, unveiled by VisitBritain in February, encouraging tourists to get off the beaten track and explore the length and breadth of the UK. Ryoichi Matsuyama, president of JNTO, wants tourists to journey beyond the “Golden Route” of Tokyo and Kyoto.

“We have so many hidden treasures across Japan as you know, but they are not so well promoted or understood”, Matsuyama told the audience at a BCCJ luncheon at the ANA InterContinental Tokyo hotel. “We have to cultivate hidden regional tourism resources”.

This push will include increasing promotion of the country as a skiing and snowboarding destination, due to its quality powder snow.

Part of the reasoning behind this strategy, said Matsuyama, is to provide relief for hotels in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto, which currently have an occupancy rate of more than 80%.

This may be attributed to a 29% year-on-year increase in inbound visitors in 2014 and a 44% increase in the first quarter of 2015 over the same period last year.

While Matsuyama said that there is appeal in "omotenashi" (spirit of hospitality), tradition, Cool Japan, nature, good value and accessibility, more needs to done to close the gap between Japan’s rank of second in the world for tourism brand and 22nd in the world for visitor numbers.

“I want to make everybody think ‘Let’s go to Japan now’. This is the mission of JNTO”, he said, pointing out that most people want to visit Japan “someday” but are put off because they consider it to be expensive, far away and difficult to navigate due to the language barrier.

He pointed out that, since the devaluation of the yen, holiday outlays in Tokyo are two thirds those in London. Moreover, there is a network of 18,000 authorised shops offering tax refunds. Work is also underway to expand the availability of free Wi-Fi and offer English-language support through tourist information centres, volunteer guides and signage.

“For Japanese, tourism was not considered an important industry until [Prime Minister Junichiro] Koizumi’s time”, Matsuyama said. “The administration [of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe] now understands tourism and is promoting it as one of the key industries for Japan”.

The Tokyo 1964 Olympic and Paralympic Games showed the restoration of Japan following World War II and gave hope to Japanese people, Matsuyama said. Now Tokyo 2020 presents an opportunity to change Japan into a tourism-orientated country and the UK can help by sharing the secrets of its success in delivering London 2012.

“We would like to know the lessons and knowhow of the Olympics and VisitBritain is ready to transfer that to Japan”, he said.

The relationship between the bodies was strengthened in September 2014 with the signing of a memorandum of understanding for the mutual exchange of experience and information in the field of tourism, with the aim of increasing the number of visitors travelling between Japan and the UK. In 2014, 220,000 British visitors holidayed in Japan. Meanwhile 222,000 Japanese went to the UK, marking a decrease of 1.3% on the previous year, although spending reached £226mn, for a year-on-year increase of 6.2%.

Through Tokyo 2020, Matsuyama hopes to provide a successful model while improving the strength of the Japan brand. Domestically, he wants to increase awareness of tourism as a key industry, involve the regions and show the volunteer spirit demonstrated since the Great East Japan Earthquake.

In addition to Tokyo 2020 and regional promotion, JNTO’s strategy to achieve a tourism-orientated society has four pillars: expansion of the inbound market; simplification of entry procedures; strengthening of meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions; and promotion of a welcoming environment.

“We should emphasise the quality of tourism”, Matsuyama said. “Visitors should come here and be satisfied, which creates the mood to come back again”.

Matsuyama said work is underway to change people’s mentality so they are ready to welcome inbound visitors. While 34% of travel consumption in France and 47% in South Korea are international, Japan’s total is 7%. Supporting ryokan — which have a 50% occupancy rate — to cater for, and promote their business to, foreign tourists could be one way to ease demand on hotels, promote the regions and give foreign tourists the traditional experience they want.

© Japan Today

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7 Comments
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Yeah, changing the mentality of the people would be first on my list. My family came to visit and for the most part had a wonderful time. It was marred, however, with the "crossed arms" of a half empty noodle shop.

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Tourism to London dropped leading up to and during the Olympics, the thought of crowds and increased expense, and hotels did increase their rates, put people off. It picked up afterwards though. One of the reasons why visitors to London for the Olympics found it so easy to get around the city was that all those Londoners that could took two weeks off work, so public transport was nowhere near as crowded as it would normally be. I can't see that happening in Tokyo.

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Want more tourists? How about not fingerprinting them like common criminals at the airports? How about less police harrassment of people who look foreign? How about abolishing Japanese only signs? How about the government stop funding the rightwing ultranationalists? How about the Japanese take learning English seriously and not expect all foreigners to be fluent in Japanese?

There are many things they could do but wont.

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How about the Japanese take learning English seriously and not expect all foreigners to be fluent in Japanese?

You don't say. Let's hope JR East, hotel staff, dept. stores, restaurants and game venues can squeak by on decent English come 2020.

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@Aly

How about the Japanese take learning English seriously and not expect all foreigners to be fluent in Japanese?

You reckon? I've never met anyone who expected me to be fluent in Japanese. Quite the opposite; they talk to me in baby Japanese or pidgin English. It's only after I explain that I'm okay with the lingo that they talk normally.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

How about less police harrassment of people who look foreign?

In twenty years this has happened to me maybe twice, and one of those times I'm hard pressed to say it was because I'm foreign.

How about abolishing Japanese only signs?

In twenty years, I've seen maybe 4-5 of these, and all of them on hostess bars or other red-light stuff

How about the government stop funding the rightwing ultranationalists?

I have no idea if the government actually does this, but have you ever actually listened to their speeches, or talked to any of them? Only a small percentage of the groups have an anti-foreign sentiment.

How about the Japanese take learning English seriously and not expect all foreigners to be fluent in Japanese?

As luca said, my experience is the polar opposite. People trying to speak English even when I was speaking Japanese. People apologizing for not being able to speak (better) English. People trying to help out because I didn't speak Japanese. Signs here are often in English (granted, bad English), and many store people trying to use English even though they are not very good at it.

And that is in spite of the fact that this is Japan, and Japanese is the language of the land.

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And that is in spite of the fact that this is Japan, and Japanese is the language of the land.

Then if that's the case. Japan should quit promoting Tourism. As if "visiting" foreigners (here for 10-14 days) should be expected to speak any japanese at all. For all us foreigners who've been around the block- Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, other cities or prolonged military-DOD stay. . . There are no excuses.

English is the international language. Why do the chinese and koreans speak it better? Japanese (as a foreign language) has nearly fallen off the map at higher education institutions in the US.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

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