omething's up in Japan, and it's more
than the rising sun. As recently as July, heads turned when Japan
tied for third as a "hot destination" in an informal survey of U.S.
Tour Operators Association (USTOA) members. Not bad for a country
ranked 35th in visitor arrivals by the World Tourism Organization
in 2000.
And this month, Sunny Land Tours joined an expanding roster of
operators looking anew to Japan as an attractive and marketable
destination.
Count Tauck World Discovery, Big Five Tours, Ritz Tours,
Trafalgar Tours and Asia Transpacific Journeys among other major
firms ramping up operations in Japan and hoping to make the country
more accessible to Americans.
So what's going on? Why has the landscape shifted for a
destination with a lackluster record for attracting leisure
travelers?
Follow the money
"We've had inquiries from customers for years asking when we
were going to offer travel to Japan," said Robin Tauck, president
of Tauck World Discovery, but the problem was price.
"Arthur Tauck went there to look into possibilities in 1994,"
said a Tauck spokeswoman. "He said the kind of thing we want to do
there would cost more than people were ready to pay."
And according to Kyle Ekinci, Sunny Land's general manager,
"Japan couldn't position itself in the market" because the programs
that operators offered were "either identical or very high-end and
expensive."
Bob Drumm, president of General Tours, who's watched the yin and
yang of the dollar/yen equation since the 1970s, said, "In the
'80s, the yen was unbelievably expensive, giving rise to stories
about a $30 cup of coffee and the like.
"Whether or not the stories were true, it was a very expensive
[country to visit]. Now, the yen is much lower, and with it there
is deflation, which eases prices there."
And although the dollar has dropped overall against the euro,
it's held its own vis-a-vis the yen, giving Japan a decided price
advantage over Europe for Americans.
Government intervention
With the economics of travel from the West seemingly in its
favor, Japan ratcheted up its ongoing effort to attract U.S. tour
operators by launching a five-year initiative in April designed to
increase tourism.
"We've been making a tremendous effort in support of tour
operators bringing tours to Japan," a spokeswoman for the JNTO
said.
The government has sponsored fam trips, encouraged ground
operators to improve their offerings and made money available to
both domestic and international operators for tour development and
promotion.
The strategy for the U.S. includes encouraging Japanese ground
operators to develop special-interest itineraries and supporting
the efforts of U.S. wholesalers to create and promote Japan travel
products.
Many of the new products are directly traceable to efforts of
the JNTO to entice tour operators to Japan.
One particularly successful marketing campaign by the JNTO
resulted in the USTOA holding its board meeting in Japan in
2002.
According to Bob Whitley, president of the USTOA, "Forty people
went. A lot had never had a Japanese program and they liked what
they saw. Some of them put together programs."
One of the attending operators was Gate 1 Tours.
"That's when we started kicking around the idea of a Japan tour.
It pays off when they get the USTOA overseas," said Ilene Braun,
the company's vice president of marketing and sales. "If you see
it, you'll sell it."
Two of this year's new entrants into the market, Big Five and
Sunny Land, were members of a group of tour operators that visited
Japan last year as guests of the Japanese government.
Within a week of his return, Sunny Land's Ekinci said,
he organized a fam trip for agents, a $400 package including
air.
"We put the fam out on Wednesday morning. By Thursday afternoon
it was sold out -- 30 spaces," he said.
"We do a lot of fams, but I've never seen anything like this.
This is telling me something: There is an interest in Japan in the
travel agent community."
And late last year, the Japanese government created its "Visit
Japan" campaign, which includes the development and marketing of
tourism products and enhancement of related services.
Finally, the government appropriated $16 million for the fiscal
year ending March 31, 2004, for promotions in its five largest
markets: the U.S., Korea, Taiwan, China and Hong Kong.
Trickle-down effect
Nonprofit organizations also have helped strengthen the market,
with trickle-down benefits for the trade.
In 1997, the JNTO participated for the first time in the
Nonprofits in Travel conference, now renamed the Educational Travel
Conference, which focuses on nonprofit organizations that sponsor
group
travel.
"A lot of operators attend that conference," said the JNTO
spokeswoman, "including Tauck, Abercrombie & Kent, Mountain
Travel Sobek and Big Five Tours.
"Suddenly, ground operators saw a need to produce
special-interest tours for the nonprofits. Once established, the
same programs could be offered to other markets.
"They already had invested the time and energy into putting the
plans together, and there was no reason not to offer them to the
trade, too."
On the safe side
It not only is funding, familiarity and falling prices that have
boosted Japan's marketability with U.S. consumers and travel
professionals.
The perception that Japan offers a safe harbor in a seemingly
unfriendly and/or dangerous world makes it an easier sell to
tourists wary of a possible anti-U.S. backlash or the threat of
terrorist attack.
And while China and some other countries in the Asia-Pacific
region were experiencing dramatic declines in tourism as a result
of the SARS outbreak that dominated the news headlines just a few
months ago, Japan got a clean bill of health, escaping the negative
publicity that plagued the region.
"It's one of the few places still perceived as being secure,"
said Asia Transpacific's president, Rusty Staff. "It even escaped
SARS."
To contact reporter David Cogswell, send e-mail to [email protected].