Peninsula Tokyo reports recovery
April has seen business at the five-star Peninsula Hotel Tokyo bounce back to 85% of pre-earthquake levels.
The figure marks a huge improvement on the 10% experienced by the 267-room hotel immediately after the quake.
“There was not a single foreigner staying here back then,” regional director of communications Mark Kobayashi told Travel Today.
Japanese domestic visitors also declined in the aftermath, but quickly recovered, along with business travellers.
Now the inbound leisure market is also returning.
‘There was a lot of pent up demand,” Kobayashi said. “The people that really wanted to come to Japan rescheduled their trip for a year later – around now.”
Australian numbers, predominantly leisure travellers, have also grown since the start of the year, buoyed by the strong Australian dollar.
“Japan is becoming a more and more Australian destination,” Kobayashi noted.
While he admitted that many travellers had been deterred by radiation risks until about six months ago, those fears were now less common with people "slowly starting to forget".
The hotel is now working closing with the Japan Tourism Agency to help rebuild tourism.
“They’re learning that the private sector can really help them,” Kobayashi said. “Especially now firms are not just concerned about promoting the brand, but about promoting the destination.”
Meanwhile, Kobayashi revealed a Japanese expansion of the Hong Kong-based hotel chain was unlikely.
“There are other countries that Peninsula is interested in before Japan,” he said.
He highlighted London and India as possibilities, but stressed that huge expansion was not on the horizon.
“We don’t want hundreds of hotels – that’s not what our brand is about,” he said.
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