TokyoTomo Travel Guide

Tourism Australia (TA) aims to achieve the goal of 400,000 in Japanese visitor arrivals for 2010. Kazunori Hori, general manager for Japan at TA, gave an overview of 2009 and said the new type of influenza dealt a serious blow to the Australian tourism causing cancellation of more than 30,000 people in educational tour alone, but the economic impact was limited only to a loss of 2 percent. Despite a decline of total Japanese visitors for the year, he continued, aggregate number of nights of their stay grew 9 percent, paring the economic loss to the minimum. Then he concluded, “It was lucky that the year 2009 wasn’t much worse.” As for 2010, Hori says, “There are no major drawbacks in sight.” He is rather hopeful of the turn of the tide, citing good passenger loads on airlines from January to March, Jetstar’s reinstatement of Kansai/Cairns route from April onward, and employment of bigger aircrafts by Qantas on Narita/Sydney route.

TA Japan’s strategy for 2010 is an implementation of the strategy carried over from the second half of 2009. It will focus on education tours that account for 70 percent of all group tours. Not only will it rely on travel agencies’ group sale but will make direct approaches to schools and teachers for solicitation. To comply with the school’s request, TA published a handbook for destination study in preparation for the trip. It also started to circulate a web magazine specialized for educational tours.

With regard to leisure travel, TA puts its energy into package tour and FIT. In the mature market of Japan where 90 percent of outbound travelers is repeat travelers, they are not content with stereotype package tours. Therefore, it is trying to impress on them that Australia is the destination that suits FIT travelers, by providing information for special interest tours (SIT) in papers and on the web. In the “Aussie” campaign whose purpose is to transmit information about SIT, the number of visitors to the website is on the increase. TA continues the story-telling communication being undertaken by Jon Kabira. Under such circumstances, the share of FIT is reported to be steadily growing. The current composition of package tour, FIT, and group in the incoming Japanese tourists is 40:40:20.

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Tourism Australia (TA) staged an event at the Shibuya 109 Studio in Tokyo to introduce a visiting team of “Aussie Oji (Prince)” in sync with “Aussie Oji Campaign” now being carried on at the TA’s website. (Note the word Oji means a prince in Japanese and has a similar phonetic sound to Aussie.)

This campaign is intended for the purpose of providing Japanese tourists, especially the market-leading women in their twenties and thirties, with the opportunities to mix with friendly and upbeat Australians. Travelers who had such experience are encouraged to make a travel sketch and send it in for a contest. Jon Kabira, who took part in the above event as the master of ceremony, and other staff are to judge the reports and award the winner (only one) a made-to-order trip to Australia worth a million yen. Applicants are advised to register beforehand at the website as the entry deadline is April 30, 2010.

The personalities who came to Japan this time as the “Oji” are: Indigenous Oji Warren Clements, a performer at Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park at Cairns; World Heritage Oji Nick Atkins, a tour guide at Great Barrier Reef; Wine Oji Brett Stanley, hospitality & tourism manager at a winery of Yarra Valley; Beach Oji Shannon Eckstein, a lifesaver and the incumbent world champion of iron man race (triathlon), Sports/Adventure Oji Ben Tomkins, a supporter of bridge-climbing at the Sydney’s landmark Harbour Bridge; and, as a special guest, Flower/Garden Oji Chad Marlene, an active comedian living in Japan who is from Perth, Western Australia, a province famous for wild flowers.

Applicants are not necessarily required to talk directly to those Oji(s) in Australia; they can talk instead to employees working at the local tourist spots who wear a campaign badge of “Aussie Oji.” They are invited to converse with those employees, have a picture taken together, and attach it to the travel report. TA says there will be many locals, other than those employees, who are ready to help tourists once they show the locals a copy of the campaign notice in English downloaded from the TA website. Since the focal point is to draw attention to the loving nature of Australian people, it does not matter whether it is women or people in other lines of business than tourism that they address.

Following the event at Shibuya, the group of Aussie Oji paid a visit to Kinki Nippon Tourist and JTB at their respective Shinjuku offices, and to H.I.S. Headquarters at Shinjuku, and promoted Australian tourism from different standpoints of each Oji.

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.

Sankei Living Shimbun held an event on September 1 to which Jetstar Airways, Tourism Australia, Tourism Queensland, and JTB World Vacations (JTBW) cooperated by setting up their booths to provide information and handing out leaflets. The event named “Girls’ Talk in Gold Coast” invited Becky and Yui Sato as guests because they are the corporate image personalities of Jetstar. In the talk show under the theme of “Women’s Travel,” two of them spoke to the audience of approximately 300 readers of City Living (community paper for working women) about what Gold Coast has to offer.

The event was held in Tokyo and Yokohama, and it was noteworthy that the number of request for attendance had exceeded 3,000 just for Tokyo gathering. Uniquely, only women are allowed to accompany the authorized attendees. Shigeru Nakata, sales manager Eastern Japan at Jetstar, who planned the event this time, asserts that Gold Coast paved the way for the Australia’s popularity of today as a destination among the Japanese people, and it is a matter of importance now to decide who you travel with. He made a proposal to plan a journey exclusively for women on the ground that they can enjoy travel life in an unceremonious way with friends of the same sex like having fun of a pajama party staying at a spacious condominium at Gold Coast. It was how he came to conceive the idea of this event.

In response to the proposal from Jetstar, JTBW joined the event as it had been promoting tours for women with a blurb “A trip to Reward Myself” since August this year. It added a three-night-five-day tour to Gold Coast for sale from September 11, in addition to the existing tours to five destinations including Hawaii and Bali. Jun Hiyoshi, director and general manager of Oceania Division at JTBW, is convinced that the new concept of women’s exclusive tours could trigger demand creation in the anemic travel market. He says, “Women lead opinions in one way or another. They often transmit ideas and information even in grass-roots method by means of blog and SNS.” He hopes this event will motivate them to plan a trip by questioning them implicitly who they want to travel with. JTBW features only Gold Coast tours at this event, but will include Cairns in the following season under the same concept and theme.

Tourism Australia and Tourism Queensland equally admit that majority of travelers on the best selling tours are women because such elements as food, wine, and beach resort fascinate them. These two organizations expect this sort of event will give a push to those who have a hidden desire to travel to the destination.

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.