TokyoTomo Travel Guide

Tourism Australia (TA) staged an event at the Shibuya 109 Studio in Tokyo to introduce a visiting team of “Aussie Oji (Prince)” in sync with “Aussie Oji Campaign” now being carried on at the TA’s website. (Note the word Oji means a prince in Japanese and has a similar phonetic sound to Aussie.)

This campaign is intended for the purpose of providing Japanese tourists, especially the market-leading women in their twenties and thirties, with the opportunities to mix with friendly and upbeat Australians. Travelers who had such experience are encouraged to make a travel sketch and send it in for a contest. Jon Kabira, who took part in the above event as the master of ceremony, and other staff are to judge the reports and award the winner (only one) a made-to-order trip to Australia worth a million yen. Applicants are advised to register beforehand at the website as the entry deadline is April 30, 2010.

The personalities who came to Japan this time as the “Oji” are: Indigenous Oji Warren Clements, a performer at Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park at Cairns; World Heritage Oji Nick Atkins, a tour guide at Great Barrier Reef; Wine Oji Brett Stanley, hospitality & tourism manager at a winery of Yarra Valley; Beach Oji Shannon Eckstein, a lifesaver and the incumbent world champion of iron man race (triathlon), Sports/Adventure Oji Ben Tomkins, a supporter of bridge-climbing at the Sydney’s landmark Harbour Bridge; and, as a special guest, Flower/Garden Oji Chad Marlene, an active comedian living in Japan who is from Perth, Western Australia, a province famous for wild flowers.

Applicants are not necessarily required to talk directly to those Oji(s) in Australia; they can talk instead to employees working at the local tourist spots who wear a campaign badge of “Aussie Oji.” They are invited to converse with those employees, have a picture taken together, and attach it to the travel report. TA says there will be many locals, other than those employees, who are ready to help tourists once they show the locals a copy of the campaign notice in English downloaded from the TA website. Since the focal point is to draw attention to the loving nature of Australian people, it does not matter whether it is women or people in other lines of business than tourism that they address.

Following the event at Shibuya, the group of Aussie Oji paid a visit to Kinki Nippon Tourist and JTB at their respective Shinjuku offices, and to H.I.S. Headquarters at Shinjuku, and promoted Australian tourism from different standpoints of each Oji.

Source: Travel Vision

Travel Vision Inc. provides information on the travel industry in Japan via "Daily Travel Vision", a Japanese-language e-mail newsletter, and the "Travel Vision" website. There are nearly 110,000 people working in the Japanese travel industry, and Travel Vision is proud to be bringing travel news to more than 30,000 people through Daily Travel Vision.