Russians are not “back” to Japan yet
The autumn season of red maple trees that the Japanese truly love to feast their eyes with just like the famous sakura cherry tree, will most likely be missed by Russian tourists. Tour operators have to admit the lack of demand for group tours and the minimum demand for individual itineraries. Thus, the stagnation that started right after the 11 March disaster still remains in place.
As per the tour operators interviewed by RATA-news, an average demand for Japan-bound tours amounts to 3-5% of the last year’s figures. Earlier the Japan National Tourist Organization (JNTO) expressed hope that the demand would start to recover in October-November and would be fully restored by the next spring, when tourists set out to see sakura blossom.
“Our first group tour is due on October 30th. Five people have booked this package. There are a bit more individual tourists, but anyway it’s a drop in the ocean compared to the last year’s figures. It is still quite hard for the people to overcome the psychological after-effects of the tsunami and the Fukushima accident” – deems the top manager for Japan of Astravel Company Mrs. Oksnana Loban’. Quite the same situation can be seen at Quinta Tour and Magic Tour companies. They too report just a few sales for the nearest dates. However the market players don’t lose their hope to see the figures go up, as the “Red Maples” season has just started and will last till late November.
Vand International Tour Company warily reports little by little restitution of the interest towards travel to Japan. According to the company’s manager Ms. Yulia Ivanova, while the demand for “maples” is at its minimum, the “sakura” trips are being booked and there are even some paid-up itineraries.
Tour operators put high hopes on the Japanese Authorities’ promotional event aimed at the support of travel industry. Recently the Japanese Government announced its intention to issue 10 thousand airfares to Japan free of charge, these can be used by tourists wishing to visit Japan from April 1st, 2012 until March 31st, 2013. The lucky travelers will be picked online. All they have to do is to answer several easy questions, particularly about their would-be itinerary and time of travel. While in Japan these tourists will be asked to keep a blog, describing their impressions. JNTO intends to allocate 1,1 billion Yens (over $14 million) for this project.
Russian tour operators believe that this project might be of interest to tourists, as the cost of an airfare, being 25-40 thousand roubles ($800-1300), makes up about a third part of the whole trip to Japan.