Japanese actress Masami Nagasawa is to be the spokesperson for the Tourism Bureau’s campaign to promote travel in Taiwan to Japanese, the bureau announced yesterday, adding that it is targeting female tourists aged 20 to 35.
Nagasawa, one of the actresses in John Woo’s (吳宇森) drama The Crossing, arrived in Taiwan on Friday to shoot a new commercial for the bureau.
At a news conference in Taipei yesterday, Nagasawa said she was honored to take on the role, adding that she lived in Taipei for five months while shooting the Taiwanese TV drama Chocolat.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
She was impressed by how friendly people were, as she could barely speak Mandarin at that time, she said.
Nagasawa said she has also traveled to Taichung and Tainan and liked both places.
The main reason Nagasawa was offered the position is because she was a lead actress in a Taiwanese TV drama and had lived in Taiwan for some time, Tourism Bureau Deputy Director-General Wayne Liu (劉喜臨) said.
“We wanted to choose someone who has an understanding of Taiwan,” he said.
From January to August, about 1.2 million Japanese tourists visited Taiwan, Liu said.
“The majority of Japanese tourists have been male, and we want to encourage more women to visit, particularly those aged from 20 to 35. Japanese women in this age group prefer in-depth and localized tour arrangements. They are also very likely to be avid Internet users and often have a say in how a family tour should be planned. In particular, they often want to try things that their idols have done. As Miss Nagasawa is very popular in Japan and has many female followers, we chose her as our tourism spokesperson in Japan,” Liu said.
Regarding the tourism campaign commercial featuring Nagasawa, Liu said its main theme would be “A Colorful Taiwan,” which aims to present the nation’s diversity through images of the nation’s tourist attractions.
The focus of the commercial this year would be very different from the one shot last year, which starred Japanese hearthrob Takuya Kimura, he added.
“When Mr Kimura was invited to shoot the commercial for us last year, Taiwan had experienced negative growth in Japanese tourists from January to August. Therefore, we featured Mr Kimura tasting soup dumplings, mango shaved ice and Taiwanese tea. The purpose of the commercial was to motivate Japanese tourists to come to Taiwan quickly and try the unique food and beverages for themselves,” he said.
Liu said the focus of the commercial this year had changed as the number of Japanese tourists had increased by almost 20 percent year-on-year from January to August.
Bureau statistics showed that Japan has a population of 127 million, but only 24 percent of Japanese have passports.
The bureau has used both Taiwanese and Japanese stars to represent it in Japan, including Taiwanese boy bands F4 and Fahrenheit and Japanese actor and singer Masaharu Fukuyama.
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