25 February 2002
HONG KONG - The Japan National Tourist Organisation is planning to launch a charm offensive on Hong Kong, Singapore and Korea in an effort to promote its MICE market. Incentives travel agents from the three countries will next month descend on Japan for a familiarization tour of its key MICE facilities and destinations, according to Seiko Taniguchi, director of the JNTO Hong Kong office.
The JNTO is hoping to leverage increased interest in Japan, especially from Hong Kong, at a time when the Japanese yen is weakening and more intra-Asia air routes to the country opening up.
While all the agents will tour the Tokyo and Osaka areas, Hong Kong and Singapore agents will go on to visit the Kanazawa region while Korean agents will visit the southern island of Okinawa, Taniguchi says.
JNTO in Hong Kong is currently conducting extensive surveys of local and foreign cap companies in Hong Kong about their MICE requirements, with results due mid-March, says Taniguchi, who came to Hong Kong just four months ago. “We don’t have any idea right now about the incentive market from Hong Kong to Japan - we’re now setting up. From April we are going to attack. In order to do this we should know first of all who is our target.”
Come April, once JNTO has established the MICE needs of Hong Kong’s corporate community, it is hoping to organize a seminar not only for incentive travel agents in Hong Kong but for travel managers within these companies, Taniguchi says. Failing this it will embark on a major visiting spree, to build direct one-on-one relations with all of Hong Kong’s key companies.