TokyoTomo Travel Guide

(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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Japan National Tourist Organization (JNTO) released an estimate of Japanese overseas travelers for March 2010 which reads 1,552,000, up 9.4 percent from last year, registering a growth following the month before last. JNTO attributes the growth to demand stimulation caused by flight increase on landing slot expansion at Narita Airport and subsequent new services entered by Etihad Airways, Emirates, and Air Macau. The strong trend of yen rate might have made people feel overseas travel is not so expensive.

Foreign visitors to Japan exhibited a positive growth for five consecutive months with 710,200 arrivals for March, up 24.9 percent. The jump for the month is partly due to the rebound from the sharp drop witnessed a year ago driven by appreciated yen and economic stagnation. The bolstered activities of Visit Japan Campaign (VJC) and broadcast of foreign-made TV dramas shot in Japan helped create travel demand to Japan. Among the major 12 markets, all countries except the U.K. outperformed the results of a year ago and China, Thailand, France, and Germany recorded all-time highs. The highest growth was attained by Korea with 56.3 percent (169,400 arrivals), followed by Singapore with 41.3 percent (13,500 arrivals) and China with 22.3 percent (123,500 arrivals).

Just for reference, total of the Japanese outbound travelers during the fiscal year 2009 (April 2009 through March 2010) numbered 15,601,114, down 1.0 percent, and that of foreign visitors to Japan was 7,247,917, down 6.7 percent. (Note the figures for February and March are preliminary in both cases.)

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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