Government Wants 20 Million Foreign Tourists In 2020

[Mulboyne]

There have been a couple of articles suggesting that foreign tourists are starting to come back. Tour groups have arrived from Hong Kong and Korea. It would actually be a surprise if there wasn't some kind of rebound in visitor numbers because they dropped so sharply. April is still shaping up to be a poor month, however.

If you make the large assumptions that Fukushima won't get any worse and there'll be no devastating aftershocks, then the biggest challenge for the Tourist Agency will likely be power outages over the summer months.

[cstaylor]

According to takechanpoo, those asian tourists must be headed north to poach unclaimed land.

[Cyka UchuuJin]

There have been a couple of articles suggesting that foreign tourists are starting to come back. Tour groups have arrived from Hong Kong and Korea. It would actually be a surprise if there wasn't some kind of rebound in visitor numbers because they dropped so sharply. April is still shaping up to be a poor month, however.

If you make the large assumptions that Fukushima won't get any worse and there'll be no devastating aftershocks, then the biggest challenge for the Tourist Agency will likely be power outages over the summer months.

i don't think i really count as 'tourist', but i'm coming back in june (which was the plan all along).

i'm curious to see how the summer tourist season shapes up, i think kansai will see a lot of traffic.

[Mike Oxlong]

A Japanese friend running a biz that depends in large degree to tourism has claimed that March was down 30% here in Okinawa, and April has been down as much, and looks to end the same. Bookings for May and June down 20%. Not sure exactly where he gets his data, but it seems people might not feeling right about being able to travel while others are suffering so much.

[Mulboyne]

Yomiuri: Tokyo ward looks to overseas shoppers

An American woman's purchases in a shopping street in Ota Ward, Tokyo, have helped give local government officials and shop owners some idea of how to attract more foreign tourists to the ward. One of the ward's main attractions is Haneda Airport, which resumed regular international flights in October and has opened a new runway and terminal building. However, ward officials want foreign travellers to spend a little more time in the ward rather than racing off to other destinations, while shop owners are trying to overcome the business slump that followed the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

In February, the ward office and other organizations held the 15th Ota Industrial Fair, and it was here that a ward official stumbled across the woman, the wife of an American buyer, who seemed to have some time on her hands. "Would you like to visit a local shopping street?" the official asked the women, who appeared to be in her 60s. The woman accompanied some ward officials to Umeyashiki shopping street, where the officials carried out an impromptu survey of what she was interested in and what she bought.

During the 90-minute shopping trip, she bought a small sake bottle that she said she would use as a vase, and coloring books featuring Japanese animation characters to give to her grandchildren. The woman said she enjoyed the trip as it was a good opportunity to drop into ordinary shops rather than the souvenir shops at the airport. Yoshiaki Ishii, chief of the ward's industrial promotion section, said, "Local shops don't provide products specially for tourists, but they do offer useful items."

With Haneda Airport's expansion last year, shopping streets in the ward are now offering new items for sale. But few foreign tourists visit the area. After the earthquake, the number of Japanese customers visiting local shopping streets dropped off. Shop owners increased their efforts to attract customers during the Golden Week holiday period. They felt that more Japanese would be interested in visiting their shops if there were more foreign visitors.

One innovation was to provide maps in English and Japanese of the local shopping area. Kojiya shopping street renewed its Web site in April, adding information in English, Chinese and Korean.

Four shopping streets along Keikyu Line plan to place maps at Shinagawa and Yokohama Stations, which many foreign travelers use. Kesao Maejima, 74, president of Zoshiki shopping street promotion association, said sales at his fruit shop dropped by about 30 percent after the earthquake. "We don't expect an immediate benefit by doing it [placing maps at stations], but we believe that if the shopping streets work together, we can promote Ota Ward," Maejima said.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Yomiuri: Tokyo ward looks to overseas shoppers

I've never thought of an airport as an attraction.

Anyway, I can't believe that the fact foreign tourists like to go to regular stores and not tourist traps is news to these clowns. I don't think Japan will ever get it.

[Ganma]

Anyway, I can't believe that the fact foreign tourists like to go to regular stores and not tourist traps is news to these clowns. I don't think Japan will ever get it.

Japanese love their Omiyage. I guess they think other people do to.

[Mike Oxlong]

[Mulboyne]

April visitor numbers down 62.5% compared with 2010.

Source

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Government pays for gaijin students to travel in irradiated Forbdden Zone to tell the world that "Japan is safety cuntry, unique four seasons round."

[matsuki]

.....another case where Japan puts image before safety. This is going to be tragic and comedic all inn one.

[Greji]

.....another case where Japan puts image before safety. This is going to be tragic and comedic all inn one.

Hey, the goal here is numbers. The more the merrier. So what if you drop a few that start glowing in the dark. The numbers graph will still look good. In an operation this big, youse gotta expect a few losses to collateral damage...

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

.....all inn one.

Literally, in this case.

[Mulboyne]

Narita Airport has announced that the number of travellers on international routes in April totalled 1,569,720, a fall of 39% compared with last year. Overseas travellers numbered 321,625, down 63% while Japanese traveller numbers fell 26%. That's the largest decline registered by the airport since it opened. Transit passengers fell 28% to 351,842 while domestic route travellers fell 14% to 103,113. Narita airport officials will attend an IATA meeting in June to emphasize the safety and security of travel to Japan.

Source

[Coligny]

Narita airport officials will attend an IATA meeting in June to emphasize the safety and security of travel COME UP WITH NEW BULLSHIT ABOOT HOW NUKULAR IS TOTALLY SAFE WITH THE UNIQUE JAPANESE MANAGEMENT METHOD AND SUPERIOR TECHNOLOGY. AND HOW LIKE, YOU CAN TOTALLY TRUST THEM CAUSE' IT'S NOT LIKE IF THEY HAD ANY KIND OF INTEREST IN LYING THEIR ASSES OFF

Source

Fixed for... them...

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Maybe they could attract visitors by doing Toxic Avenger Part II Tours?
Wasn't the Toxic Avenger's Dad Japanese?

[Ganma]

Maybe they could attract visitors by doing Toxic Avenger Part II Tours?
Wasn't the Toxic Avenger's Dad Japanese?

Good one. I loved that movie!
I also hear police are still singling out non asian foreigners at Narita for passport checks. Can't verify that though as I haven't been to the airport for ages. But you'd think they could lighten up on the bullshit anti terrorist measures that just serve to annoy people.

[Mulboyne]

Everyone seems to be getting a personal welcome these days. The policeman who wants to check your passport just after you've gone through immigration is off to the right.

[Mulboyne]

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

The Japan National Tourist Organization (JNTO) and the Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA)...distributing "arigato postcards" to Japanese people as they leave Japan.

Kinda reminds me of what Colonel Kilgore used to distribute on the bodies of dead VC in Apolocypse Now....

"Let's Charlie know who killed 'em" sorta stuff....

Maybe that's just me....

[Mulboyne]

No change to official tourism targets (which were revised upwards since this thread title was written - see earlier posts). Gov't confirms it still wants 15 million by 2013, 20 million by 2016 and 30 million some time after 2020.

Source (Japanese)

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

No change to official tourism targets (which were revised upwards since this thread title was written - see earlier posts). Gov't confirms it still wants 15 million by 2013, 20 million by 2016 and 30 million some time after 2020.

Source (Japanese)

Ah, TIJ....

[Coligny]

Ah, TIJ....

They will do like in Pripyat, Nukular tourism...

[matsuki]

"We Japanese"

[Mulboyne]

[Ganma]

[matsuki]

:rofl:

Same as my recent trip, empty plane leaving Haneda, return flight was packed but seemed like most were FG with connecting flights.

[Ganma]

[Mulboyne]

[floatr][/floatr]May numbers are now in. The total was 358,000, down 50.4% and the third month of decline. Slightly better than April's 62.5% fall but the cumulative total from Jan-May now represents a fall of 31.9%. By country, Hong Kong -71.6%, Korea -58.3%, China -47.8%, Taiwan -40.4%, US -37.8%. There was some evidence of a small recovery in group tours.

[Catoneinutica]

[floatr][/floatr]May numbers are now in. The total was 358,000, down 50.4% and the third month of decline. Slightly better than April's 62.5% fall but the cumulative total from Jan-May now represents a fall of 31.9%. By country, Hong Kong -71.6%, Korea -58.3%, China -47.8%, Taiwan -40.4%, US -37.8%. There was some evidence of a small recovery in group tours.

These are year-on-year percentages? The Jan-May number seems a bit meaningless since it aggregates pre- and post-apocalypse numbers.