TokyoTomo Travel Guide

Visit Britain and Finnair will join forces to launch the “More for Your Money” campaign in a drive to promote tourism to the UK. Capitalizing on the strong Japanese yen, Visit Britain endeavors to stimulate the travel demand from Japan, extolling UK’s attractive shopping experience besides the touristic spots through the campaign.

With a valid boarding pass of Finnair’s designated flights, a visitor will receive a VIP card for Westfield Shopping Center in London allowing discounts in over 60 shops at Westfield during the campaign which runs until March 31 this year. The designated Finnair flights are from Narita, Nagoya and Osaka’s Kansai to London or Manchester via Helsinki.

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.

Etihad Airways (EY), based in Abu Dhabi and the flag carrier of the United Arab Emirates, commenced flight today out of Chubu airport, Nagoya to Abu Dhabi via Beijing, using a 2 class configuration (JCL:22, EY:240) Airbus A330 aircraft. Etihad Airways will initially fly four times a week to Nagoya, and will increase to five flights a week in the coming months.

Etihad Airways will further expand its Japan operations by launching the Narita, Tokyo-Abu Dhabi route in March. By adding Nagoya and Tokyo to its network, it offers services to eight destinations in the Far East including Beijing, Jakarta, Manila, Singapore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, strenghtening its position in the region.

In addition to its own operations, Etihad Airways will also offer codeshare services with Japan’s ANA from 1 March, offering connections for Etihad passengers from Nagoya to Chitose and Fukuoka and through Tokyo’s Narita Airport to Osaka, and for ANA passengers, connections to Etihad’s worldwide network via its Abu Dhabi hub.

Etihad flight schedule

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Garuda Indonesia-Japan launched a project for visitor arrivals from Indonesia. Currently, Japanese nationals account for some 90 percent of the passengers carried by Garuda (GA) on its Japan routes. Depending on the day of the week, however, its seat load factor drops due to an insufficient number of Japanese groups booked. The airline strives to generate traffic originating from both countries in an effort to improve the overall seat load factor, ensuring a stable capacity offer with a possible demand-driven capacity increase in the foreseeable future. With the inbound travel project launched this time, Garuda aims to achieve an overall seat load factor of over 70 percent on the Japan routes and, on its strategically-selected Chubu route, it strives to transport some 160 visitor arrivals monthly from Indonesia.

The project proposes excursion tours featuring Takayma, Kanazawa, Tateyama and Kurobe, starting and terminating at Chubu International Airport, Centrair, unlike the traditional excursions from Tokyo and Osaka. Itineraries with a combination of Tokyo and Osaka are possible as well to further stimulate inbound travel demand from Indonesia. In the end of last November, Garuda Indonesia-Japan organized a study tour including business negotiations, inviting a total of 29 people from travel agencies and travel media of Indonesia. The study tour participants saw, among others, snow and Japanese historical and cultural spots including the World Heritage sites as touristic attractions. Meanwhile, 10 travel agencies in Indonesia started selling package tours, producing tour brochures titled “Japan Alpen.”

With the booming economy in Indonesia, the number of Indonesian travelers with a sightseeing purpose continues to increase. The total number of visitor arrivals in Japan from Indonesia during 2008 rose by 3.8 percent year-on-year to 66,593, of whom 40,494 were tourists, posting a 5.4 percent increase. (Source: JNTO) According to Kiyoshi Suizu, Marketing and Sales Manager, Nagoya Branch, Garuda Indonesia, acting as the project booster, Indonesia has the world’s fourth largest population of approximately 230 million. The wealthy class people are traveling to Europe and Australia. In an effort to stimulate travel demand on the Japan routes, Garuda Indonesia wants to motivate these wealthy people to travel to Japan, Suizu said.

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.