Interview: Japan Tourism President on Presenting a Mature Nation to the World
Skift Take
Tokyo is already a major destination for travelers, particularly those from Asia, and the Olympics will likely only brighten its image. The real challenge lies in spreading the tourism growth beyond the big Japanese cities.
[gallery ids="151193,129929,129664,82866"]
Editor’s Note: Skift is publishing a series of interviews with CEOs of destination marketing organizations where we discuss the future of their organizations and the evolving strategies for attracting visitors. Read all the interviews as they come out here.
This continues our series of CEO interviews that began with online travel CEOs in Future of Travel Booking (now an e-book), and continued with hotel CEOs in the Future of the Guest Experience series (which is also an e-book).
As the host of the 2020 Summer Olympic Games and two other major international sporting events during the next decade, Japan is preparing to take its place on the world stage. Japan last hosted the Olympics in 1964 in Tokyo, and this time around it beat out Madrid and Istanbul for hosting duties.
Skift recently spoke with Ryoichi Matsuyama, president of the Japan National Tourism Organization, who's held that position since 2011. We talked about the challenges of preparing for the 2020 Summer Olympics, the legacy he hopes the games leave behind, what the impact of the expansion of Tokyo's Haneda Airport has meant, and the implications of the rise of mobile.
An edited version of the interview follows:
Skift: What are the biggest challenges for your organization as Japan gets ready for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo?
Ryoichi Matsuyama: For the Olympics we’d like to establish a certain type of environment and we’ve laid this vision out in three pillars. We want to accept handicapped people and welcome them from our hearts and this is one of the legacies we’re trying to achieve.
Another aspect is that Japan is quite a well-known brand, but yet we’re still not well- presented. We’d like to focus on our attractions and hidden treasures. Tokyo is already well-known as a city to foreigners, but apart from Tokyo in Japan, not so much.
Our task is to make this change. In 2019 we will host the Rugby World Cup, then the Olympics are in 2020 and then in 2021 we will host the World Masters Games in Kansai. These are three busy, consecutive events and they give us a lot to focus on and to make a good experience fo
