TokyoTomo Travel Guide

Huis Ten Bosch Co., Ltd. filed with the Tokyo District Court on February 22 the “Revision to the proposed Corporate Reorganization Plan (Draft)” as per the basic agreement with HIS. Under the revised reorganization plan, it is stated that all of the present Huis Ten Bosch executives are all to step down in favor of the successors on the effective date on which the revised reorganization plan receives an approval from the Tokyo District Court and, thereby, Hideo Sawada, Chairman of HIS is to assume his duties as the new president of Huis Ten Bosch Co., Ltd. Two board members and a company auditor to be brought in with President Sawada will be appointed by the reorganization trustee subject to approval by the Tokyo District Court.

Under the reorganization plan, Huis Ten Bosch, a company under reorganization, is to acquire all of its 500,010 issued shares free of charge from Nomura Principal Finance Co., Ltd. which owns the said shares, and all of thus acquired shares will be cancelled on the effective date on which the new shares are to be issued. Subsequently, Huis Ten Bosch will issue 60,000 new shares worth three billion yen, intending to allocate them to four companies in business circles in Kyushu.

Read more…

During a press conference held on February 12 about the management support for Huis Ten Bosch Co., Ltd (HTB), Hideo Sawada, Chairman of HIS said, “I have indeed agonized over the financial support for HTB, but I have finally decided to take the challenge to go ahead with it,” showing enthusiasm that he would like to rehabilitate Huis Ten Bosch as one of the best touristic cities in Asia, not just as a theme park.

The business performance of Huis Ten Bosch (HTB) has been in the red for the last three years. The process for the turnaround is not going to be an easy one, but Sawada expects its domestic travel and the inbound travel business to bring HIS a synergy effect. HIS intends to make use of Huis Ten Bosch as tool to attract visitors from Asia including China and Korea.

Meanwhile, HIS made it a precondition for its management assistance to HTB that the local governments and local business circles would provide HIS a yearly contribution in the amount of 900 million yen over the period of next 10 years. The letter of understanding states that unless the said funding and other issues are fully executed by them, HIS would withdraw from the management assistance to HTB. The total amount of financial support by HIS to Huis Ten Bosch Co., Ltd is expected to be two billion yen which will be payable between the end of March and the beginning of April this year.

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.

Hiromi Tagawa, president and CEO of JTB, and Akira Hirabayashi, president of H.I.S., had an open dialogue on January 7 at Travel Trade Forum (Travel Konwakai) to discuss such topics as store management, online sales, pricing, and travel value. Both of them articulated the need to reinvent business models and unveiled their strategies explaining some specific cases.

Tagawa described the current position of JTB Group as follows: “After we split our company in 2006, we made a good start, but are now gong through a difficult phase. The old business schemes are found to be doing no good any more. We are in need of making a reform, but our task is to restructure our organization and to pursue growth scenario at the same time. Those two objectives are normally conflicting and do not go hand in hand with each other, but we cannot keep pace with the changes of the times if we tackle one first and then the other.” The area of JTB’s challenges, so far as the structural reform is concerned, is in “realignment of store network,” he said, and growth scenario is in “online business, global operation, and community exchange” as well as development of human resources. By keeping up this line of strategy, he proclaims, JTB Group aspires to become “a human and cultural exchange industry,” but its ultimate goal is to become “a lifestyle industry” closely associated with the entire course of people’s life.

Hirabayashi said in the meantime, “I have undergone innumerable major changes in a short time of less than a couple of years since I assumed presidency, such as the economic crisis, oil surcharge hike, curtailment of agency commission, epidemic of the new type of flu, and the appreciated yen. Under the circumstances, H.I.S. makes it a point to deal with the changes vigorously. We must change ourselves prior to external changes in order to deal with them. That is what we are trying day to day.” While making preparation for business opportunities that would arise after capacity increase at the Tokyo metropolitan airports, he is supposed to put his energy into overseas deployment for a year or two to come. The number of business locations abroad numbered 100 last year, and they are expected to be not only the receptive outposts for Japanese travelers but to be the points where outbound travel to Japan is generated locally.

When it comes to the store realignment and online sales, while the store operation costs will become a burden to agency management, online sales are likely to grow further. Hirabayashi pointed out, “Web business will grow so much over a few years that it is likely to comprise more than a half of the total sales industry-wide.” He did not forget to mention that real store function is indispensable when they set to stimulate the travel demand in the market or to increase new passport holders. This is a kind of dilemma that the travel industry faces today.

Read more…