TokyoTomo Travel Guide

During a presentation of its sales promotion held on January 20, Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) unveiled that it set a goal of achieving 300,000 Japanese visitor arrivals for the year 2010. With the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games just around the corner attracting Japan’s travel market, Canadian Tourism Commission aims to address a revitalization of its travel market under the theme “Again, To Canada!” Hiroshi Sawabe, Director of VWC 20 Million Traveler Promotion Office at JATA, was emphatic that the customer need changed significantly from the time it was 20 years ago and he hoped the travel industry will join forces to jointly start to produce new package tours featuring Canada right from scratch, capitalizing on its excellent travel materials, infrastructure for FIT and reputation for safety in an effort to position Canada as one of the main destinations for Japanese.

The number of Japanese visitor arrivals in Canada is expected to decline to approximately 200,000 for 2009. The peak came during 1996 when some 650,000 Japanese travelers visited Canada. Commenting on the target set for 300,000 visitor arrivals, Anthony Rippingale, General Manager Japan at Canadian Tourism Commission said, “It is a realistic target,” giving the following reasons: 1) the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games will help increase Canada’s media exposure and its market perception, 2) within the travel industry, Canada’s recognition as a strategic destination by the Visit World Campaign (VWC) in autumn 2009 will enhance new product development, 3) Air Canada (AC) will start Narita/Calgary service from March, increasing its overall seat capacity and 4) the strong Japanese yen and increasing domestic demand in Japan’s market.

As the future marketing strategy, Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) will put the first priority on its sales approach to the Japanese travel industry, organizing seminars and workshops and, besides it will also offer Canada Specialist Program (CSP) for free, targeting the sales and planning staff. In terms of approaching consumers in general, CTC aims to promote package products by theme and FIT through its website while upgrading travel contents of the regular package tours such as Vancouver, Canadian Rockies, and Toronto with Niagara Falls and Maple Route.

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The Visit World Campaign (VWC) will address travel demand stimulation focusing on Canada and Turkey, starting from winter 2009 as decided by the VWC 20 Million Travelers Promotion Special Committee held on October 9. The VWC aims to reactivate the travel demand for Canada and maintain the favorable growth of travel demand for Turkey taking advantage of the “Japan Year 2010 in Turkey.” Hiroshi Sawabe, Director, VWC 20 Million Travelers Promotion Office, JATA, expressed much enthusiasm for the VWC, citing, “JATA is willing to further build up BtoB (Business to Business) relations between travel agencies, airlines and tourism offices, which JATA identifies as part of its destination-focused strategy.

In implementing action plans for winter 2009, the VWC 20 Million Travelers Promotion Special Committee will not change the main frame work of its campaign including the strategy for targeted destinations. The Committee will continue to concentrate its efforts on the “strategy to enhance the vitalization of Kansai, Chubu and other local regions,” “The Direct Marketing and Its Media Strategy” and “The Market Development and Research.” Analyzing the revitalization of the local regions, Sawabe said, “The next year will see further expansion of the Metropolitan airports. Besides, the travel agencies are centralizing more of the respective product planning and development functions in the Tokyo area. It means that it will be harder for the local travel industry to revitalize their own regions.” In a drive to reactivate the regional travel markets, the VWC Committee intends to promote charter flights from local regions, support prefectural and regional governments with passport acquisition campaigns and help them to launch overseas travel-related events in cooperation with JATA’s branch offices.

Also, by the direct marketing the VWC 20 Million Travelers Promotion Special Committee will enhance further awareness of the JATA’s “Visit World Campaign.” In terms of the market development and research, the VWC Committee will work together with the US to promote trips on a cruise ship. Regarding the US destinations, in particular, the VWC Committee pointed out that at one time it was simply taken for granted that the number of Japanese visitors to the US including Hawaii and Guam totaled yearly four and a half million to five million. The Committee raised an issue asking the JATA members how they can actually revitalize the travel demand for the US, inviting the “American fans” from among the travel industry. One idea, for example, is to set up a working group in the US by local Japanese travel agencies, explained the VWC Committee. In addition, one of the other foreseeable strategies to reactivate the outbound travel market, the VWC committee said, is to concentrate mainly to achieve a recovery of business traffic.

VWC Enters Second Half – Endeavoring to Form “Never Ending” Business Framework
The 3-year Visit World Campaign will now move into its second phase from this winter. Looking back on the first half, Sawabe explained that the destination-focused strategy has brought the travel industry certain results in terms of the build-up of BtoB relations between travel agencies, airlines and tourism offices. In fact, the VWC Committee has established a closer relation with BOAR, the Board of Airline Representatives. In Vietnam also, there has been a move to expand its inbound tourism in cooperation with the Japanese ambassador to Viet Nam, remarked the VWC Committee, adding that it is a positive response. In terms of the market development and research, JATA’s VWC Committee also provides necessary information materials both in Japanese and English to those countries and regions wishing to enter the Japanese tourism market. The VWC Promotion Special Committee pointed out, looking back on the first phase, that the regional charter flight plans had not yielded tangible results, however.

During the remaining one year and a half, Sawabe stressed that it is vitally important for the VWC Committee to bring what would be achieved during the 3-year campaign (an implementation period of the VWC) forward to the 4th year and beyond. With the destination-focused strategy, the VWC 20Million Travelers Promotion Special Committee hopes to be able to encourage more self-initiative move in the tourism promotion within the built-up BtoB relations. Also with the direct marketing and media strategy, the VWC Committee indicated that it endeavors to join forces with the whole travel industry to project a bright and promising image of overseas tourism and stimulate customers’ interest in overseas travel as well.

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.

Visit World Campaign (VWC) 20Million Travelers Promotion Office at Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA) held a presentation meeting on July 6, inviting travel agencies, ground operators, and wholesalers, to make a report of a European travel research. The research was made by Japan Travel Bureau Foundation, with cooperation of the Promotion Office, at the request of European Travel Commission (ETC). The report revealed that Europe is a destination to which Japanese people harbor a favorable image and a strong desire to travel and therefore it sustains undiminished demand. A great number of travelers come back repeatedly and their range of interest is wide apart.

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