The abovementioned conference was held in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada on Thursday, 6 September 2007. Canada was represented by officials from the Canadian Tourism Commission, including its Chairman Charles Lapointe, in addition to provincial governments and members of the airline and travel industries.
Japan was represented by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MLIT) Deputy Director-General Noboru Nishisaka in addition to officials from MLIT and the Japan National Tourist Organization, together with members of the airline and travel industries.
The following is a summary of the wide variety of opinions expressed by both countries regarding ways of advancing tourism ties between Canada and Japan.
• To open the conference, Canadian representative Charles Lapointe offered greetings on behalf of the Canadian Tourism Commission. Within his address, he expressed concern that, while Japanese tourists visiting Canada represent 14% of Canadian tourism industry revenue and are an important market, share has been continuing to decline. Through this conference he wished to more deeply analyze the market and exchange ideas regarding the development of new travel products.
In his address, Deputy Director Nishisaka announced that 2007 has been designated Japan-Canada Tourism Exchange Year, and both countries are jointly undertaking tourism goodwill ambassador activities, amongst others. He also remarked that from this point forward he wished for bilateral undertaking toward the expansion of tourism exchange between both countries.
• Next, there was an exchange of opinions and updates on bilateral undertakings since the previous conference.
The Visit Japan Campaign headquarters reported on Japan 's activities by saying that, in addition to education travel seminars held in Toronto in February of this year and inviting education officials to Japan in July, travel fairs have been held in many regions of Canada, and there was also an event commemorating Japan-Canada Tourism Exchange Year in Toronto in April 2007.
In addition to this, representing the opinion of strategists in Japan concerned with the market of Japanese visitors to Canada, the Japan Association of Travel Agents remarked that, while there is a high level of satisfaction among Japanese visitors to Canada, there is a low rate of repeat visits, and stressed the importance of developing new destinations together with stepping up the appeal of traditional products. Also, the opinion was expressed that there is a need to reinforce intra-industry cooperation amongst tourism officials in both countries to resolve the difficulty of arranging air seats and hotel room allocation.
The Canadian side presented their promotional activities in relation with the good will ambassadors, and their promotions in the Japanese market incorporating the new brand identity of Canada.
• Regarding the main theme of the conference, “Strategic Actions regarding the Bilateral Travel Markets of Japan and Canada,” four common themes – (1) consumers, (2) products, (3) distribution and (4) public relations – were established, and officials from Japan and Canada made presentations on current market analysis and future actions in the Canadian visitors to Japan market and Japanese visitors to Canada market respectively, followed by an exchange of viewpoints.
(1) Consumer and market targets
Taking Vancouver as an example, the Canadian side presented a marketing strategy report on how to deal with the declining inbound travelers by segmenting consumers into such segments as FIT tour travelers, and city travelers with certain objectives like golfing and hiking.
The Japanese side presented the strategies in their “Visit Japan Campaign” which are based on the segmentation of prospective consumers placing young seniors as the core market followed by Asian Canadians and the young generation as their secondary market.
(2) Product development
In order to keep Canada an exciting destination to lure repeat visitors from Japan, the Canadian side presented their strategies regarding the development of products that also include such tours as visiting wineries, and region oriented experiential tours within the traditional sight-seeing products.
The Japanese side presented their product strategies in which in addition to promoting the developments of existing core products such as the Tokyo-Osaka standard route products, as future areas of development, Japan will work on enriching travel in which Japanese culture and art are experienced, and will also work to attract educational travel.
(3) Distribution
The Canadian side presented their strategy to have as much information on-line about travel destinations, based on their view to place the role of the internet as a tool to gather travel information, rather than actually buying tour products because there are still consumers who do not feel secure enough.
The Japanese side presented also that the majority of consumers still buy tour products through travel trade, and that the cooperation with the travel trade remains important.
(4)Promotion
The Canadian side presented their promotional activities in Atlantic Canada that utilized Japanese media.
The Japanese side presented their work with websites and public relations through the media. In particular, to eliminate the image that Japan is expensive; the keywords of PR messages will continue to be ‘Affordable Japan'.
4. Canada and Japan have been exchanging opinions and working together through this Canada-Japan Tourism Conference, which has produced numerous good results, and the two countries are at a point in which the developments of even more effective promotions are necessary.
The two countries shall continue their promotional activities, and including opinion exchange at tourism promotional events between industry related organizations, will consider new frameworks for exchanging opinions that will be the most effective in expanding tourism exchange.
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