The 7th Japan-China-Korea tourism ministers’ summit was held in Tokyo on April 11 and 12 for the first time in the past four years, joined by Akihiro Ota, Minister of Land, Infrastructure, transport and tourism of Japan, Li Jinzao, China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) Chairman and Kim Jongdeok, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism if Korea. After the summit, the three ministers agreed to a joint statement including a goal to increase exchange of travelers among three countries from 20.47 million in 2014 to 30 million in 2020. The 8th trilateral meeting will be held in Wuhan in China next year.
Toward the goal, Japan, China and Korea are making efforts to improve travelers’ conveniences, such as extension of air and cruise ship networks, smother domestic access transportation, development of communication environment and improvement of payment systems.
Also, the public-private collaborations will be promoted in three areas of two-way tourism, exchange of travelers among local areas or regions and exchanges of culture, sports or young generation. In particular, the following agendas will be discussed:
*tours for exchanges between sister cities or friendship cities
*joint promotion for exchange tours for culture and history
*joint promotion for tourism exchanges for international sports events
*Japan-China-Korea education trip symposium
*improvement of IT services for travelers
*partnerships among tourism-related institutes or education organizations
*human resource development for tourism industry
*sharing of information on market trends or tourism statistics
*partnerships among working levels of Japan, China and Korea
In addition, the three countries will jointly develop Visit East Asia Campaign to encourage world’s travelers to visit Japan, China or Korea. For the campaign, the three countries’ local tourism offices in the world will work together to consider promotion contents or targets. Also, joint posters or pamphlets will be made, and model tours over the three countries will be developed jointly by the three countries’ travel companies.
The tourism authorities of Japan, China and Korea will enhance partnerships to improve qualities of tourism exchanges and customer satisfactions, and also efforts to solve troubles resulting from cultural and lifestyle differences and to establish a mutual cooperation system in a possible tourism crisis will be made.
In Japanese
