Tiếng Việt
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At a meeting with the Danang Department of Tourism and various travel firms today, May 13, Shoichi Gonda, head of JATA’s Outbound Travel Executive Committee, said that JATA is willing to support Danang with tourism promotion. The association has repeatedly introduced information on Vietnamese destinations to its members.
Gonda proposed the Danang tourism sector should closely cooperate with Vietnam Airlines to further tap the Japanese market.
He explained that Japanese visitors do not typically stay at resorts during their trips but spend most of their time exploring the cultural characteristics of destinations. Therefore, Danang should intensify the promotion of its culture.
The city can access young Japanese customers through multimedia marketing channels. However, the easiest way to access these customers is through group tours, but the city must provide tour guides who can speak Japanese for these tours, Gonda added.
Akihiko Hosaka, deputy head of JATA’s Outbound Travel Executive Committee, expected the Danang government to provide more training courses on the Japanese language for local tour guides due to the severe shortage of Japanese-speaking tour guides.
In November, 200 Vietnamese students will be sent to Japan to learn Japanese under a JATA program.
Meanwhile, JATA President Tadashi Shimura suggested opening an office in Japan to promote the tourism products and services of Danang and central Vietnam, as most Japanese tourists tend to flock to HCMC and Hanoi when they visit Vietnam.
In addition, the city should participate in tourism exhibitions in Japan or cooperate with the governments of Japanese localities to organize tourism promotion programs, such as the Vietnam tourism week in Japan, Shimura stated.
Nguyen Son Thuy, director of Unique Indochina Tourist, said that his company is willing to take part in these tourism promotion programs but finds it hard to cooperate with large Japanese travel companies and prefers to work with small and medium ones instead, Thuy said.
In response, a JATA representative advised Thuy to target specific companies, work directly with them and offer appropriate products. The company should also ensure the quality of its products.
For his part, Nguyen Xuan Binh, deputy director of the Danang Department of Tourism, praised the advice of the Japanese experts, acknowleding its usefulness in helping the city attract more Japanese tourists.
The city has coordinated with local schools to provide training courses on foreign languages, including Japanese, to tour guides.
Since 2017, Danang has become an attractive destination for Japanese tourists. Japan is now the third largest source market for the Danang tourism sector, after South Korea and China.
The Danang International Airport serves regular flights between Danang and Japan’s cities of Osaka and Narita, as well as chartered flights from Tokyo, Nagoya, Sapporo, Sendai, Niigata and Fukuoka.