Japan tries to bring back tourism after it plummets

Zensuke Suzuki, the chief official at the Japan Tourism Agency, has put in long hours since the March 11 magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami that struck northeastern Japan, leaving 24,000 dead or missing and prompting worries about the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

"Basically, what we're seeing is travelers worried about visiting Japan because they don't think it's safe," Suzuki said.As a result, Japan has been reeling from a huge drop in tourists. The Japan National Tourism Organization reported a 62.5% decline in foreign visitors in April compared with the same period last year.

To address the downturn, Suzuki has been asking foreign media, including travel writers, to visit Japan as guests. (Many media, including the Los Angeles Times, do not allow writers to participate in such trips.)But, Suzuki said of the journalists' experiences, "We would ask them to report about what they see."

Members of the travel industry are also invited. "Many travel agencies aren't offering Japan packages to their customers," Suzuki said. "We want these people to view for themselves that things are fine here."This year, Japan plans to spend about $6.2 million on promotion and advertising to salvage its image, a fund originally earmarked to boost Japan's tourism.

"Destinations such as Okinawa and Hokkaido, far away from Fukushima, have also been suffering from less business," said Hiroshi Uyama, overseas marketing and promotion director at Japan's tourism organization.Oriental Land Co., the operator of the two Tokyo Disney theme parks, plans for the first time to offer discounted tickets this summer to children and students.

"We've offered student discounts during the low season but never in the summer and we didn't offer the discount to guests living overseas," said Hiroshi Suzuki, management associate at Oriental Land. "Park attendance has been somewhat lower compared to past years after the quake."One-day park passports for children 4 to 11 will be sold for about $25 instead of about $51 from July 8-Aug. 31.

Hotels and airlines have been offering cut-rate Japan deals. Zuji, Travelocity's Hong Kong subsidiary, promotes Japan packages of two days/three nights or three nights/four days starting at $172.Such efforts seem to be paying off. "Since May, tourists from Asia are slowly starting to return," Uyama said.

Source = latimes