To catalyse JNTO’s market presence, the tourism board is taking part in numerous joint promotional activities with the biggest stakeholders in the Indian travel fraternity. They are also collaborating with airline partners to promote Japan directly or via connecting destinations with them.
To boost their outreach in India, Japan National Tourism Organisation (JNTO) conducted its annual ‘Visit Japan Roadshow 2019’ in Mumbai and Ahmedabad. Aiming at strengthening the relationship with the travel and trade fraternity, the roadshow was attended by 16 delegations who interacted with about 230 travel agents in both the cities.
JNTO along with representatives from hotels, resorts, attractions, destination management companies (DMCs) and airlines participated in the roadshow to showcase and promote their products to the travel trade in both cities.
Yusuke Yamamoto, the newly appointed executive director of JNTO in India said: “Over the last few months, we have received a phenomenal response from India. Inbound tourist arrival from India has significantly increased and we intend to create as much awareness as we can. Although we are observing a steady year-on-year increase in tourist arrivals to Japan, yet there is so much left to explore to increase this figure further.”
In 2018, Japan witnessed 14.6% growth in Indian tourist arrivals with 1.54 lakh travellers visiting the country. Keeping up with this growth trajectory, the country has already witnessed a 14.3% increase in the period of January to July 2019 with 106,200 Indian visitors to Japan in comparison to 92,937 during the same period in 2018.
“I am hopeful or reaching the 2-lakh-visitor-arrival-mark from India this year. As of July 2019, we have already seen 106,200 Indian visitors to Japan since January in comparison to 92,937 during the same period in 2018. India is a huge market and therefore we are focusing on Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad,” said Yusuke Yamamoto,
Moreover, in an attempt to promote Okinawa as a wedding destination, JNTO took few influential wedding planners to the Okinawa prefecture in the month of March for a recce. After receiving a positive response from the Indian wedding planners, JNTO also organised a wedding seminar in Delhi only for the Indian wedding planners community.
JNTO is also confident that the destination will further witness growth from the south Indian market with the launch of All Nippon Airways direct flights from Chennai to Tokyo from October 27. Subsequently, in 2020 Japan Airlines will start its direct flight from Bengaluru to Tokyo. This would be the first time Southern part of India will get direct flights to Japan and of course, encouraging more number of Indian travelers to Japan.
