Forty Thousand Russians Visit Japan in 2013
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In 2013 Russian inbound tourist flow to Japan reached 60,502 people, which is 10 thousand more than in 2012. Tourism was the purpose of 40,347 visits, which is 33% more than in 2012, said Head of the London office of Japan National Tourism Organisation Masanobu Mikami at a press-conference during MITT-2014.
According to him, the Russian tourist flow, which decreased dramatically after Japan’s earthquake of 2011, has been actively growing for the past two years and has already exceeded the mark set in 2010, which cannot be said about the total number of Russians who arrive in Japan. The latter still has not reached the maximum number of arrivals that was registered in the pre-crisis 2008 (66,270 arrivals).
Mr. Masanobu Mikami also said that Russians have started buying more mid-range tours and fewer expensive ones. He believes that this has to do with the fact that Russian operators have been studying the Japanese hotel market long enough to arrive at the conclusion that even inexpensive Japanese hotels offer pretty good quality. “I think that the demand for mid-range offers will keep growing,” he said.
Mr. Mikami said that the Far East tour operators are embarking on a new destination – Okinawa Island. They plan on organizing charter flights there this year.
He also mentioned a problem which was negatively affecting the Russian tourist flow to Japan – the lack of Russian-speaking guides.
“However, the number of certified guides is growing by the year. Many of them are native Russian speakers,” said Mr. Mikami.
Deputy Head of the London office of JNTO Valentin Shestak proceeded to speak on the number of Russian arrivals to Japan, which, according to him, peak during the New Year holidays, from the end of March to the early April (the time when cherry blossoms bloom), and autumn (the time of Red Maples). Last year saw the rise in demand for the ‘Golden Route’ (Tokyo – Hakone – Nara – Osaka).
“We are going to amend our policies so that Russians can also visit Japan from May to June,” he said. “This year JNTO will also offer Russians new itineraries to Ishikawa Prefecture and to Kyushu Island”.
Mr. Shestak shared his forecasts for 2014. He believes that the Russian tourist flow is going to continue to grow, agent sales from cities with a million-plus population and sales of cruises calling at Japanese ports will increase, and the number of business trips will rise; charter flights will be organized from the Far East to Niigata and to Okinawa.
Deputy Head of Regional sales and marketing department of the airline Japan Airlines Margarita Kolobashkina said that currently the carrier is doing 3 flights a week between Moscow and Tokyo. Starting April 1, the number of Japan Airlines flights will quadruple. The route is serviced by the state-of-the-art Boeing 787. S7 provides flights to the Japanese capitals from Vladivostok (3 flights a week) and from Khabarovsk (2 flights a week).
“Thanks to the new materials that are now used in the plane’s cabin, the on-board humidity has been increased to 20% (as opposed to 4-5% in an average plane) and the pressure has been reduced, which makes for a high level of passenger comfort during flights,” said Ms. Kolobashkina.
Japan Airlines has a codeshare agreement with S7, which affords the latter the ability to sell tickets for flights from Russian cities to Tokyo via a connecting point in Moscow with the name ‘Japan Airlines’ imprinted on them. The flight to Moscow or back only costs 30 euro.
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