TokyoTomo Travel Guide

The second meeting of Sports Tourism Promotion Committee – an organization initiated by Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) and joined by members from related ministries, agencies, and institutions – took place on June 25 in a bid to conceive business models for promoting sports tourism. There are four working teams set up, each with a respective task of “planning of sports tours,” “improvement of ticketing procedures,” “internationalization of sport events and promotion of international exchange,” and “sports arenas modernization and community renovation.” Each team made a report at the meeting on how to proceed with substantiative experiments and problems involved therein for the promotion of sports tourism, and the members present had a heated discussion on the points raised by those teams. JTA will boil down the issues before the third meeting and implement them sometime between the end of July and September. It is going to make a budget request late August to endorse the programs agreed at the meeting.

The team working for “sports tour planning” proposed to make experiments and verification in two separate ways by dividing the sports genre into two: games to play and games to spectate. In case of games to spectate like baseball, football, and Judo, it suggests to attach an additional value to the tour. Take a baseball tour for instance. The enthusiastic baseball fans in Taiwan or any other part of Asia will be extremely pleased if they are afforded an opportunity to have their pictures taken with the star players after the game, or to make a background tour. In case of games to join like triathlon and cycling race, it suggests forming teams by country or by family for competition. In either case, those programs may be combined with local cuisine, or hands-on experience, or hot spring bathing in the tour. The working team says they will check on how much the participants will be satisfied with tour quality, games (watching or playing), ticket delivery, and accommodation, and see if these contents are viable in attracting repeat travelers and how they are modified for the better.

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Japan Council of Travel Agents for Chinese Visitors made it clear that it is going to address three issues in order to achieve its objectives. Michinori Yamasaki, Executive Officer Group Headquarters, Global Business Unit at JTB Corp., who was appointed to new chairman of the Council at its 11th general meeting, expressed his resolve in this way. The issues are manifested in its FY2010 action plan and are to be tackled by the Council in cooperation with Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) and other related organizations.

The three issues are: (1) to increase the number of appointed handling agencies in China, (2) to ease restrictions on Chinese individuals while they are traveling in Japan, and (3) to allow more free activities for visitors on group tours. Regarding the second point, for instance, it is compulsory for Japanese travel agencies to complete the whole itinerary by sending them off at the airport, which takes extra time and labor on receptive agencies. After amassing data on these matters, the Council will talk to JTA and other administrative agencies to alleviate the constraints.

Meanwhile, familiarization tours to China will be continued as before for Japanese travel agencies but to some other places than Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, and business sessions will be set up on those occasions to exchange views with Chinese counterparts. In addition, joint seminars with volume electronics retailers and department stores, or seminars for tour quality control are being planned separately.

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(JNTO) made public its plan to achieve 10 million foreign visitors to Japan in the recently released action plan for the fiscal 2010. In view of the FY2010 being the final year of the Visit Japan Campaign (VJC) project and at the same time the starting year in the first phase for the next goal of 30 million foreign visitors project, Tadatoshi Mamiya, JNTO chairman, said, “This year becomes a milestone for the growth of foreign visitors to our country. We will exert ourselves for the cause of inbound travel promotion.” The immediate goal for this year in the framework of 30-million-visitor project, at the threshold of the first phase of the project, is to achieve 10 million mainly from Japan’s major markets in East Asia such as China, Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

In making overseas publicity, an individual theme and targeted segments will be clarified depending on each market for the promotional purpose. For the Chinese market, JNTO encouraged in the past creation of West Japan tours that visit Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe. Foreign visitors to Japan for whom JNTO assisted in merchandising or in sale amounted to 478,000 in FY2008 and are expected to number 518,000 this year. For the market of Korea, for instance, JNTO recommends to merchandise tours that feature hot springs and provincial cities. Apart from marketing tours, JNTO launches e-learning system whereby it provides various facts about tourism resources as well as basic information about Japan, by way of developing human resources. As to the list of major markets for Japanese inbound travel, the Netherlands and North Europe were newly counted in for this year.

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