Japan attracts more tourists from India as number rising: JNTO

FUKUOKA/NEW DELHI: Tourist traffic from India to Japan is on the rise as it witnessed an increase of 14% in 2019 with 2020 drawing almost blank because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the year 2019, 1.8 lakh Indians traveled to Japan, which was 14% higher than the number of tourists from India who visited Japan in the previous year 2018.

This was revealed by Yasuke Yamamoto, Executive Director, Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO), New Delhi office in his address during Namaste Japan Fest 2021 on March 20. The event was streamed live from Fukuoka.

He was all praised for the Namaste Japan Fest and said that such events helped in increasing tourist traffic to Japan.

Japan has an overall target of attracting 6 crore tourists from across the world by 2030, and Tokyo Olympics were supposed to get the major chunk of it, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, achieving the target seems a bit difficult.

Japan Foundation Director-General Koji Sato admired the efforts put in by the organisers of Japan Fest, especially Jay Kumar, and his team for bringing Japan and India closer culturally.

The event Namaste Japan Fest 2021 on Saturday turned out to be a hybrid as some of the events like Kimono, Yukata, Origami, Calligraphy, and Rice Ball & Green Tea Making, were performed physically by the Japanese artists at Kokusai Hiroba in Fukuoka where the event was held.

However, the participating artists for Harica Naomi dance and song, Miyazaki Kyoko, Japanese Song, Monica san Japanese Dance, Muta San & Ono san and Talk by All International students & Japanese (Team Sonal from India) by Japanese and Dondaku vid submitted their videos for the events and their video footages were streamed live from Fukuoka on social media platforms.

Audiences from Japan, India, and other parts of the world joined virtually through the Zoom and Facebook platforms to enjoy the performances by the artists and speeches by the guests.

Jay Kumar, Chairman, Namaste Japan Fest Executive Committee, explained the importance of Fukuoka city in Japan as well as for the people from other countries. Situated in the eastern part of Japan, it is close to Fukuoka airport at a 10-minute distance and an emerging favorite destination for the students for conducting studies as well as for those who want to get employed here.

Shinji Inaba, Chief of India Market, CHOYA CO.LTD. introduced his company and product and supported Indian-Japan relations.

Fukuoka Foreign Language College Chairman Hitoshi Iwamoto said that this institution which was 120 years old had 600 students studying here. While many foreign students were learning the Japanese language, Japanese learned the English language, and the college had vocational courses also, he added.

Hakata Goryon Josei Organization President Ms. Nishikawa, and Asia Japanese Academy Chairman Katsumi Tsukamoto informed the audience about the working of their institutions.

The MEdia partner of the event Asian Community News (ACN) Network’s Chief Editor & Founder Sanjeev K Ahuja recalled the last year’s event that happened in New Delhi and about 10,000 visitors attended Namaste Japan Fest. He hoped that the next year’s event would happen physically in 2022 and would be attended by 100,000 people as the event was getting immensely popular in India.