TokyoTomo Travel Guide

At the regular press meeting on February 26, Hiroshi Mizohata, Commissioner of Japan Tourism Agency (JTA), spoke about a plan to slide the spring vacation period into several chunks of holidays according to the geographical division of the country. He is going to propose the plan on March 3 to the second meeting of the working team on vacation dispersal. JTA’s idea is to reallocate the three consecutive national holidays in May to some appropriate time of the season, region by region, and make five-day vacation by combining the weekend, without changing the total number of national holidays of the year.

Mizohata says, “It would be ideal if parents, like in Europe, could take paid leave in sync with their children’s dispersed summer vacation. In reality, however, Japanese workers’ acquisition of paid leave remains at somewhere above 40 percent of the days they are entitled to.” Since such low rate of acquisition is more evident in provincial areas or with small-sized enterprises, he argues that people will find it easy to take paid holidays on fixed dates once it is institutionalized as a universal practice and will consequently serve to disperse holiday peaks.

When it comes to the number of geographical zones and the time frame to be dispersed, he mentioned two plans, that is, five regions over five-week time frame and five regions over two-and-a-half-week time frame. “If we stretch the time frame to two- to three-month period, we come too close to summer vacation. Therefore, two full months of May and June would be the limit,” he said. Regarding the choice of holiday period applicable to each region, he presumes most of the regions would opt for the same period as that of Tokyo because Tokyo is the center of business. For this reason, he is of the opinion that the government should take the initiative in fixing the period and drawing territorial boundaries.

Mizohata unveiled a plan to make another vacation in autumn by moving national holidays which are called Happy Mondays; they are Coming-of-Age Day (January), Marine Day (July), Respect for the Aged Day (September), and Sports Day (October). In reply to a concern that such a string of holidays might give rise to travel congestion caused by concentrated demand, he said, “Nothing can be perfect. If the benefits are more than enough to offset minor drawbacks, we should set out for it. In my opinion, to take spring holidays in unison throughout the nation as we do now gives more harm than does good.”

He further remarked on the proposed dispersal of holidays, “We are aware that there are many different opinions on this issue among big and small businesses and among different lines of business. We are ready to listen to these opinions carefully. When it is confirmed that any specific measures are effective in leveling off the travel peaks, we would like to put them into practice carefully but decisively.” Thus, he takes a forward-looking stance on this issue.

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.

Hiroshi Mizohata, Commissioner of Japan Tourism Agency (JTA), expressed his resolve at the regular press meeting on January 27 to take any action necessary to achieve the goal of 10 million foreign visitors to Japan in 2010. The year 2009 ended with 6.79 million visitors, down 19 percent from the year earlier, so it needs a 47 percent boost in order to attain 10 million in 2010 as outlined in the Tourism Nation Promotion Basic Plan. He remarked, “It is numerically a hefty aim, but I do not think it infeasible as we have made a fresh start.” As means of fulfilling the objective, he unveiled his plan to conduct an aggressive promotion at four staple markets of Korea, China, Taiwan, and Hon Kong.

He is of the opinion that it is essential to make effective campaigns at these markets making the best use of the earmarked budget whose appropriation has more than tripled. He is eager to address the alleviation of the restriction on individual tourist visa for Chinese nationals and the leveling-off of peak travel seasons. It is also on his agenda to promote sports tours relating to baseball and football, and the talks with the relevant associations are reportedly under way.

The individual tourist visas issued to Chinese nationals numbered 7,689 for the six-month time from last July to the end of the year. They are reckoned, therefore, to be hardly in excess of 20,000 on yearly basis as most of the travelers still come in groups. From the viewpoint of increasing visa issuance, it is essential to ease the qualification for individual tourist visa application, and the working team for inbound travel at Tourism Nation Promotion Headquarters is requesting early implementation of the relaxation. While the ministries concerned insist the necessity of setting a minimum income level of those individuals, the working team demands to get rid of such limitation. As for the implementation schedule, the team members say that, since they are unable to go ahead without consent from those ministries, the new regulations would not be ready before January but should be in time for the start of Shanghai Expo.

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.

In the government budget framework for the fiscal year 2010, Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) could get 12,652 million yen for its allocation, 2.02 times this year’s budget, according to JTA. The initial request as of November 2009 was 25,140 million yen, 4.02 times the current budget. The amounts of funds appropriated to the principal items are as follows: 9,477 million yen for the first phase program of the 30 million foreign visitor project (vs. 3,191 million yen for this year, 2.97 times), 643 million yen for tourism-based regional development and revitalization plan (vs. 625 million yen, 1.03 times), 28 million yen for preparations for implementing work-life balance (vs. 57 million yen, 0.49 time), and 330 million yen for extensive surveys for tourism statistics (vs. 116 million yen, 2.83 times).

In the first-phase program of the 30 million foreign visitor project, Visit Japan Campaign (VJC) has an appropriation of 8,648 million yen (3.1 times). The money mostly goes to promotional activities at major markets for better awareness and invigorated solicitation. The receptive environmental improvement undertaking gets 196 million yen – the highest growth of 4.94 times among all items – for establishing an assessment scheme of receptive infrastructure for foreign visitors and for the relevant human resources development. MICE promotion obtains 449 million yen (1.24 times) and the APEC tourism ministers’ conference is funded with 185 million yen as the host country.

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