VietNamNet Bridge – A series of cultural activities, festivals, art performances and investment promotion conferences will be held this month at the ‘Vietnam Days in Japan 2013’ in Japan’s Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Nagoya and Fukuoka cities.

Japanese tourists are seen strolling through a park in Quang Nam Province. Vietnam will hold a multi-component tourism road show in Japan this month to attract more tourists from this country.

Two important festivals of the event are the Vietnam Festival in Tokyo and Nagoya on September 14-15 and the Hello Vietnam-Aichi 2013 Festival in Aichi Prefecture on September 21-22.

The event is co-organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Embassy of Japan in Vietnam. The road show is launched to attract Japanese tourists to Vietnam, at a time the growth rate of arrivals from this country to Vietnam is slowing.

The Vietnam Festival, an annual festival attracting hundreds of thousands of Japanese, will feature around 90 booths displaying Vietnamese food, handicraft and tourism products. In addition, there will be art performances and ao dai shows with the participation of Vietnamese and Japanese artists.

According to Nguyen Van Tran, general director of the travel joint venture company APEX mainly catering to Japan tourists, the parent company in Japan will join the event to introduce Vietnamese tourism to Japanese tourists. Currently, attracting tourists from Japan is more difficult as the price competition is getting tougher, and thus there needs to be more promotion activities to attract tourists.

Japan is a big visitor-generating market for Vietnam’s tourism. However, the number of Japanese tourists coming to Vietnam in the January-August period increased by only a slight 4.4% year-on-year to 392,990.

Many Vietnamese travel companies and associations have proposed opening representative offices in Japan but no office has been opened there so far.

The Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Quang Ninh Province has recently announced to open its representative office in Japan late this year.

Source: SGT