The Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) is actively encouraging business events and leisure visitors to go beyond the well-known destinations of Tokyo, Osaka and Hokkaido.
This comes as Japan is attempting to avoid overtourism in popular cities such as Kyoto, where congestion has weakened their appeal, said Tetsuhiro Nakano, JNTO’s senior director, Singapore. And there is no better time to do a reset than post-lockdown, having just recently opened its borders on October 11.
Nakano pointed out there are other regions such as Sanin, Shikoku, Tohoku and Chubu that would be suitable for both business events and leisure visitors.
This would appeal to the Singapore outbound market, where enthusiasm for Japan runs high, Nakano noted. Moreover, Singapore is currently the biggest business events market from South-east Asia to Japan.
To attract more business events from Singapore, the JTNO Singapore office is planning to hold an online business events seminar in November between meeting planners and buyers from Singapore with Japanese suppliers.
In the same vein, Sapporo Convention Bureau’s director, Marico Ogi, told TTGmice that her short-term plan is to grow the business events market from South-east Asia, as well as from South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
For South-east Asia, the Sapporo Convention Bureau is promoting its capital, Sapporo, as a potential business events destination during the winter and early spring (November to April), which are the city’s off-season periods.
At press time, Ogi shared that there were already several high-end meetings from South-east Asia heading to Hokkaido this year, and she expects incentive trips – which were postponed during Covid-19 – to return next year.
Overall, Japan is targeting 60 million international tourists and 15 trillion yen (US$100 billion) in tourism revenue by 2030.
