As Japan gears up to host the Rugby World Cup and Olympic Games in consecutive years, many businesses are seizing on the opportunity to capitalize on the influx of tourists, media and athletes.
The Rugby World Cup begins in September next year, followed by the Tokyo Games 10 months later, giving businesses a unique chance to reach an international and diverse customer base that might be encountering Japanese products for the first time.
One business sector looking to benefit from the arrival of thousands of athletes is the condom industry.
It has become tradition in the lead-up to Olympic Games for tournament organizers to distribute thousands of free prophylactics to athletes looking to let their hair down once their event is over.
Almost half a million condoms were handed out in the 2016 Rio Games Olympic Village, while condom packaging for the Beijing 2008 Olympics featured the Games’ motto: “Faster, higher, stronger.”
With about 10,000 athletes expected to descend on the Olympic Village, Japanese condom companies are keen to promote their unique products to an international audience.
Sagami Rubber Industries, one of Japan’s leading condom makers, are hoping to use the Olympics to enhance awareness of their ultra-thin Polyurethane sheaths.
Sagami, alongside Japanese competitor Okamoto, produce the world’s thinnest condoms, which are only 0.01mm thick.
Sagami senior sales manager Hiroshi Yamashita spoke of the popularity of the ultra-thin condoms in China and believes Tokyo 2020 could help broaden Sagami’s scope worldwide.
Olympic organizers have yet to name an official condom supplier.
“If the International Olympic Committee ask us, then we would be very happy to supply our product for the Tokyo 2020 Games,” said Yamashita, who predicts that 150,000 condoms will be needed.
One place where these condoms could end up being used is at one of Japan’s notorious “love hotels,” as Tokyo 2020 organizers face an expected shortage of accommodation.
Japan is already dealing with record numbers of tourists — 28.69 million last year — and the government has set a goal of 40 million foreign visitors by 2020.
To satisfy the needs of this influx, the government is keen for tourists to use alternative means of accommodation, such as love hotels, capsule hotels and traditional Japanese inns (ryokan).
Love hotels can be booked by the hour, as well as for longer stays, promising guests privacy. In the past, this was associated almost exclusively with sexual activity, but times are changing.
Booking.com has seen the number of love hotel bookings leap 48 percent in the past year and expect that trend to continue as rugby and Olympic fans look to experience all that Japan has to offer.
“What is interesting about the love hotel sector is that they have very interesting facilities, for example karaoke rooms — which is pretty cool for many foreigners. Some will also have bars or very large rooms for families,” Booking’s Tokyo area manager Donna Morris said.
American tourist Jerome Davies, who was visiting Tokyo this month with his wife and three children, said he chose to stay at a love hotel, because it offered a large room at a much cheaper rate than a regular hotel.
“Its clean, it’s well located and it suits our family just fine,” Davies said. “I have stayed in a lot worse places.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier