Japan’s tourism body will focus on drawing Australian skiers back to its slopes for the next ski season, as it revealed visitor numbers from its number one ski market were still well below pre-earthquake levels.
January and February saw 40,132 Australians head to Japan, many of them last minute bookings, Japan National Tourism Organisation revealed. The figure is 23% less than the same period in 2010 which recorded 52,200 – the highest record to date.
Only 163,000 Australians visited Japan in 2011, as tourism felt the impact of March’s devastating earthquake.
However, despite an overall decline in Australian visitor numbers of 30% for the entire ski season, JNTO Sydney executive director Yukio Yamashita claimed the 2011/12 ski season had been “better than expected” with the destination reporting “the best snow conditions in years” on the back of generous snowfall.
“Some small resorts received more visitors even exceeding their records of the 2010 snow season,” he said. “This is positive and encouraging and we hope it brings confidence to snow travel agents when selling Japan.”
JNTO together with ski resorts Hokkaido, Nagano, Niigata and the Tohoku regio will pariticpate in a Snow Travel Expo to be held in Melbourne on May 21 and Sydney on May 28 to be attended by travel agents and media.
To register, email snow.seminar2012@gmail.com.
