Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) has launched a new logo and a new tag line of ‘Make charms of Japan power of Japan’ for goals of 40 million international visitors to Japan and local spending of 8 trillion JPY by 2020. Ryoichi Matsuyama, JNTO President said a news conference that JNTO is making efforts to make the tourism industry a core industry in Japan.
For 2017, JNTO particularly focuses on three strategies. The first one of them is marketing activities based on big data. Matsuyama said, “The inbound travel market is more competitive globally. We are required for more carful strategies.” JNTO, for instance, is trying to establish a system to forecast Chinese travelers’ trends in long-term holidays like Chinese New Year.
Secondly JNTO is contributing to revitalization in local regions by encouraging international visitors to travel in other regions than the Golden Route, especially Tohoku or Kyushu devastated by great earthquakes. “Experience-typed travel or long-stay travel may be good for local regions,” Matsuyama said.
The third challenge is to attract luxuary travelers from Europe, U.S. or Australia, for which JNTO has enhanced promotional activities. Also, emphasizing the MICE market, JNTO is trying to invite not only international conferences but also meetings or incentive tours. “To seek higher quality tourism, we have to help the tourism industry strengthen their business bases. It is important for lodging providers to make profits with their higher productivities,” Matsuyama said.
In 2016, visitors from four markets of East Asia (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea) reached 17 million or more, which accounted for 72.7% of the total. Matsuyama said, “The share may expand to about 80% in the neat future.”
Matsuyama also mentioned IR Promotion Act, which was passed by the Diet in December 2016. “Casino is not an opportunity to increase international visitors.” He has an idea that it is more important to build a large-scale convention center or hotels to attract international conferences.
