Japan assists local firms in tour arrangements

Japan assists local firms in tour arrangements

Japan assists local firms in tour arrangements

Dao Loan

Tourism officials of Japan and HCMC attend the inauguration of the representative office of the Japan Tourism Agency in Vietnam – PHOTO: DAO LOAN

HCMC – The Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) has pledged to work closely with Vietnamese travel firms specializing in arranging Japan tours for local guests, JTA said at a conference on the “Visit Japan” program on March 29.

Takahashi Ayumi, the agency’s chief representative in Vietnam, said Vietnam is a potential source market for Japan’s tourism sector. In the five years to 2016, Vietnamese visitors to Japan increased fourfold to over 233,000.

Japan will participate in many tourism fairs such as the International Travel Expo (ITE) in HCMC and organize seminars to provide information and cooperate with domestic tourism companies to open more attractive tours from Vietnam to Japan.

“We are ready to directly support Vietnamese enterprises. They can now ask us for help and we will give advice on a case-by-case basis,” said Ayumi at the “Visit Japan” conference in HCMC. This is also the event for the Japan Tourism Agency to introduce its representative office, which was inaugurated in Hanoi on Wednesday.

At the conference, Japan introduced new tourist destinations in Chubu and Kyushu to provide Vietnamese tourists with more tour options. Currently, the most attractive destinations for Vietnamese tourists are Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya.

The Japanese side has done plenty of activities to help Vietnamese tourism firms organize tours to Japan, including sharing advertising costs.

On March 29 in Hanoi, representatives of the Japan Tourism Agency and the Japan National Tourism Organization signed a memorandum of understanding with the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism to promote tourism cooperation between the two countries.

The two sides expect Japanese arrivals in Vietnam to rise to one million by 2018, compared to 740,000 last year, and the number of Vietnamese tourists to Japan to reach half a million by then.

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