TokyoTomo Travel Guide

Tourism Australia (TA) has recently held an educational travel seminar and workshop in Tokyo in concert with the Australian Embassy, attracting forty participants from some 35 schools located mainly in Tokyo. Hideyuki Amamiya, Senior Trade Development Executive at Tourism Australia told the participating school officials that since 2001 Australia has always topped the list of popularity among the destinations abroad for school excursions.

Michelle Allan, Counselor (Education) at the Australian Embassy Tokyo briefed the seminar participants on the overseas students presently studying in Australia. The total number of students from abroad studying in Australia during the year 2009 showed a 13.3 percent year-on-year increase to 631,935 whilst the number of Japanese students declined by 6.4 percent to 12,553. Allan, observing that young Japanese nowadays do not travel to overseas, expressed concern that they may lack an ability to understand the world affairs and an ability to foster their own competitiveness in the global society. Having said that, he added that he is of the opinion that there has been a slight improvement when compared to the fiscal year 2008 which suffered a 16 percent year-on-year decrease in number.

Considering the fact that approximately 70 percent of the Japanese students apply for necessary visas while studying at universities and vocational training schools in Australia, Allan analyzes that after finishing language schools, Japanese students who like Australia stay on to study at universities and elsewhere in Australia. He also appealed to the school officials during the seminar that Australia’s international environment helps provide overseas students opportunities to improve their English ability, to become global-minded, to acquire skills useful for their future careers and foster the ability to think themselves and enhance their creativity, thus appealing to Australia’s high quality of the education. Australia is proud of its nationwide support to accept students from abroad. With the Education Services for Overseas Students (ESOS), the country provides overseas students quality education services and, at the same time, protects their interests by law. The students from abroad, in response to a questionnaire, say that Australia as a destination to study abroad tops the list of the “high quality education” at universities, vocational training schools and English-language schools.

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.

The VWC 20 Million Travelers Promotion Office at Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA) plans to launch a summer travel campaign from the beginning to the middle of June. Its publicity makes an appearance in encompassing train advertisement on three railway lines in the Tokyo metropolitan area and posters at the main stations nationwide. JATA brought the schedule forward by two weeks this year because sale of summer tours at retail stores starts right after the spring holidays, and package tour wholesalers therefore pressed JATA to start the campaign earlier than usual. JATA is working with foreign tourist offices and airlines to capture summer travel demand at the earliest possible opportunities.

Scandinavian Tourist Board (STB), Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC), Tourism Australia (TA), Finnair (AY), and Jetstar Airways (JQ) cooperated in artwork and visualization of the destination images for JATA’s publicity by contributing part of their archives. Encompassing train advertisement is run for two weeks from the beginning of June on the three lines of JR Keihin Tohoku, Keihin Electric Express Railway, and Keisei Electric Railway. Poster display is scheduled from the beginning of June for a week at eight key stations across the country including JR Sapporo Station and Naha Airport Station (Okinawa) on monorail railway.

On the poster, a notice is given about the “Let’s go kaigai (abroad)” campaign slated for July 24 and about JATA World Travel Fair starting from September 24. As to the Travel Fair, another campaign is forthcoming in which admission tickets will be offered to consumers for free in a drawing.

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.

Sydney Marathon is going to be held on September 19 this year. As a preliminary step for the occasion, Sydney Marathon Japan Office, Tourism Australia, and jointly gave a briefing of the event.

Sydney Marathon, or Sydney Running Festival, is the biggest marathon race in the Southern Hemisphere in which 32,000 people took part last year. It consists of four types of races to attract a vast number of joggers, namely, full marathon, half marathon, nine-kilometer run, and four-kilometer run. Overseas participants are on the increase every year and those from Japan totaled 555 in 2009, making Japan the top foreign country in the number of entrants. Seen by gender, women account for 54 percent and those in their late twenties to forties represent a little more than 30 percent of the total. Takeshi Teramoto, general manager of Sydney Marathon Japan Office, says they see so many Japanese in this race because Naoko Takahashi, a marathon gold medalist at the Sydney Olympics and nicknamed “Q-chan,” has become a goodwill ambassador to this event. Moreover, she herself decided to join the Marathon this year, which is certain to motivate many Japanese runners to go over to Sydney. Relevant coverage will appear in women’s magazines like last year to arouse interest among young women as the target segment.

The Marathon celebrates the 10th anniversary this year and plans some commemorative events to mark the occasion. One of such programs is a selection of 10 unofficial goodwill ambassadors “Team 10” who are composed of citizen runners chosen from the public and runners representing the sponsoring enterprises. Kyoko Kanehira, regional director Japan of Tourism New South Wales, says those member get coaching from Takahashi to enable them to complete the full marathon, and the coaching processes are made public at the blog posted on the website of a tie-up travel magazine Chikyu-no-Arukikata (Globe Trotters).

Kazunori Hori, general manager for Japan at Tourism Australia, said at the briefing, “Australia is a big power in sports. It witnesses a fad in jogging these days and the coming event will attract a number of runners of all ages, from youth to seniors. Sydney is in easy access from Tokyo with Qantas Airways and Japan Air Lines operating non-stop daily flight between the two cities, so we expect many Japanese to join this event.”

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.