A NEW multiple-entry visa is growing the burgeoning China outbound market for Japan, especially Okinawa.
Since July 1, multiple-entry visas are issued to well-to-do individual Chinese tourists and their families who are required to travel to Okinawa on their first visit. The visas are valid for three years and permit stays of up to 90 consecutive days. This is a boon compared to the usual single-entry, 15-day visa.
Speaking to TTG Asia e-Daily at the Visit Japan Travel Trade Meet in Singapore, JTB Okinawa Corp general manager-inbound, Toshihide Ozaki, said: “We’ve had a lot of enquiries for hotels from FITs since July. Even enquiries for group trips have gone up.”
He pointed that a new twice-weekly flight from Beijing by Hainan Airlines, which began on July 28, was also driving up demand, adding that China Eastern was already operating a four-weekly service from Shanghai.
According to local paper Ryukyu Shimpo, close to 1,000 visas were issued in a month since the change, a 15-fold increase over 50 received last July.
Just a year ago, the Japanese government had taken measures to increase the number of individual visitors from China by reducing the minimum income levels needed to qualify for a visa and expanding the number of offices where visa applications are taken from three to seven.
Evidently, stakeholders interviewed said the Chinese market had been steadily growing for areas such as Hokkaido and Kyushu until the March double disaster.
Hokkaido Tourism Organization assistant promotion section leader, Saori Komuro, said: “Before the tsunami, our fastest growing market was China. There is no significant recovery yet, but it is picking up very fast.”
In the meantime, JTB’s Ozaki said he was also now trying to gun for Chinese MICE, especially from Japanese companies based in Shanghai and Beijing.
