Major Japanese Travel Agencies Reinforcing Tours for Foreign Travelers

Tokyo, June 9 (Jiji Press)--Major Japanese travel agencies are beefing up their lineups of package tours for foreign travelers to Japan, ahead of the expected easing of visa issuance conditions for visitors from Southeast Asian countries this summer as part of the government's effort to increase the number of foreign visitors to the country to 20 million each year from 8 million at present. Those package tours are designed primarily for relatively affluent foreign customers with little time constraint to travel, highlighting specific activities such as climbing Mount Fuji and eating Japanese cuisine. On Thursday, industry leader JTB Corp. released the "Mt. Fuji Climbing Private Tour" series. The two- to four-day luxury tour plans are offered for foreign visitors at prices ranging from 100,000 yen to 300,000 yen per person, which include the lodging cost at the seventh or eighth station of the 3,776-meter mountain and rental fees for climbing gear. The prices are never cheap, but parties are accompanied by mountain guides who speak foreign languages and can enjoy hot spring bathing and traditional "kaiseki" cuisine courses after descending from Japan's highest mountain. "More foreign tourists will surely visit Mount Fuji after the mountain is added to UNESCO's World Heritage List," a JTB spokesman said. Club Tourism International Inc. a unit of KNT-CT Holdings Co. <9726>, is promoting sales of one-day bus tours priced at around 10,000 yen per person. These tours feature activities focusing on foods popular among foreigners, such as picking cherries and eating "Wagyu" Japanese beef. In January-May, sales of such bus tours more than doubled from a year earlier, according to KNT-CT. The one-day trips have attracted visitors from Taiwan and Hong Kong. "But recently, tourists from Thailand and Malaysia have increased noticeably," a KNT-CT spokesman said. The number of foreign visitors to Japan totaled 920,000 in April, the record monthly figure. Reducing their dependence on group tourists from mainland China amid the continued bilateral territorial wrangling over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, Japanese travel agencies are now eager to present high-quality trip plans for visitors from other parts of Asia, according to the JTB official. END