Seibu Holdings Inc, operator of Prince Hotels, is opening a sales office in Taiwan next month to help lure more tourists to Japan, which targets a doubling of visitors to 20 million a year by 2020.
The company will also open a sales office next month in Kanazawa, where a bullet-train service is being added next year, Seibu president Takashi Goto said in an interview on Wednesday.
RECORD
Seibu, which has the most hotel rooms in Tokyo, is refurbishing hotels and expanding its overseas sales network as visitors to Japan have risen to a record.
The capital is to host the Summer Olympic Games in 2020, a step Goto sees as helping to build the country into a magnet for tourists.
“The government is aiming to help make Japan a more tourist-oriented country, whereas I want to go further and make us into a tourist powerhouse,” Goto said in Tokorozawa, northwest of Tokyo.
“I’m stepping up efforts both domestically and overseas to achieve that,” he added.
The number of visitors to Japan rose above 10 million for the first time last year and has jumped 26 percent in the first eight months of this year, according to figures from the Japan National Tourism Organization.
Taiwanese visitors made up the largest group in the first eight months of this year, jumping 30 percent to 1.9 million people, according to a report from the tourism organization.
South Korea was the second-biggest visiting country, with 1.8 million people, and China was third with 1.5 million, the report showed.
EXPANSION
Seibu, which has five sales offices, is also interested in expanding the franchise and management of hotels overseas, Goto said.
The company has three hotels in Hawaii, three franchises in Taiwan and one franchise in Malaysia, and is to manage a new hotel and ski resort being opened in China in December.
“We are actively looking to increase our franchise and management of hotels both domestically and overseas,” Goto said. “Southeast Asia is a very promising market.”
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