Japan hotels launch tacticals to hasten recovery

WITH traffic trickling back into the country in recent weeks, some hotels in Japan are hoping to stimulate a faster recovery through special deals and packages.

Small Luxury Hotels of the World’s member hotels in Japan have launched promotional packages on top of the group’s usual summer sales.

Rihga Royal Hotels, which has 10 properties across Japan, is offering packages targeted at FITs instead of tour groups. Liu Qianru, account executive, sales & marketing – Asia, Rihga Royal Hotels, explained: “Tour groups tend to recover slower than FITs, so we are focusing our efforts on FITs instead. However, we are flexible and will offer discounts or value-adds to groups if we can.”

Worldhotels senior director of sales, Asia-Pacific, Christina Spykerman, said: “We are seeing improvements in inbound leisure and corporate traffic to Japan in the past few weeks. Business has to be done and companies cannot put off meetings too long.”

“Furthermore, holidaymakers are picking up the hot offers available now from hotels and airlines. We are going to launch a promotion with an airline shortly,” she added.

The Peninsula Tokyo, which has seen a pickup in corporate guests from Singapore, the US and Europe in the past month, is working with airlines such as Cathay Pacific and All Nippon Airways to drive traffic to Japan. The hotel is also lending support to the Japanese tourism authorities by offering accommodation to fam trip participants.

As the local market is the best bet for the hotel at the moment – 65 per cent of current business is domestic and the rest foreign, a reverse from before the disaster – The Peninsula Tokyo has launched a 33,500 yen (US$416) package targeted at locals, including breakfast for two, 40 per cent off spa services and a lucky draw opportunity.

“International meetings are hard to replace immediately,” said Malcolm Thompson, general manager of The Peninsula Tokyo. “So we have to be at trade shows in the region, as the regional market will be the strongest for us in the short term. We have to restore confidence in travellers first.”

Spykerman said this was the best time for travellers to visit Japan, as “it is not as crowded and expensive as before, and travellers will see benefits such as complimentary late check-out, that they would otherwise not get usually”.

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