Newstrack

'We are stepping up our promotional activities in western India.'

The Japanese national tourist office has designated India as a newly emerging market. Katsuhisa Ishizaki, director, Japan National Tourist Organisation speaks to Express TravelWorld about Japan's plans to tap the outbound Indian market. By Andrea Lopez

What are your plans for the India outbound market under the 'Yokoso Japan' campaign?

Due to India's economic growth, the number of overseas departures has gone up in the last five years and the figure has hit more than eight million in 2006. Although the official figure has not been released, I assume it will have reached nearly nine million today. Under the current circumstances, the Japanese government has designated India as one of the three emerging and promising markets, besides Malaysia and Russia. We are stepping up our promotional activities in western India. Tourism statistics reveal that Japan received 8.3 million international travellers in 2007, which is half the number of Japanese tourists who travelled abroad. The worldwide 'Yokoso Japan' ('Welcome to Japan') campaign was launched in 2003 to boost inbound tourism. We have expanded our target markets to eight, by adding UK, France, Germany, Australia and Singapore.

Are you open to starting a specialist program for the trade? What is being done to simplify visa procedures?

We have initiated a specialist program in Singapore and based on how well it fares, we will introduce it to other countries. As far as visa issues are concerned, the Japanese government announced the simplification of visa application procedures last year. The details are still under discussion, but I believe that the outcome will enable more people to travel to Japan.

What kind of a strategy are you looking to adopt for 2008-09?

We will continue our market research and initiate more consumer-oriented activities and events in Japan. We need to create more awareness about Japan and its products. We are not in a position to announce our plans yet; however we will do so at the start of the Japanese fiscal year in April 2008. We are in the process of conducting surveys with Indian travel agents and the results will tell us in which direction we need to head. We are looking at the India market very seriously and plan to target both the leisure and the MICE segments, despite there being only 30 per cent leisure travellers as compared to 60 per cent business travellers. We invested US$ 2,00,000 for tourism into India in 2007-08.