Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) and Singapore Airlines (SIA) have signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) to enhance cooperation in the promotion of travel and tourism to Japan from five key markets.
As part of the partnership, JNTO and SIA will be making significant investments to boost marketing activities, promoting tourism to Japan from Singapore, Australia, India, Indonesia and Malaysia. These markets were identified by both JNTO and SIA due to the high volume of travellers flying to Japan in 2018.
Through the MOC, JNTO and SIA will work closely in joint promotional activities to help achieve Japan’s goal of welcoming 40 million inbound tourists in 2020. This is the first time JNTO is announcing a partnership with an airline.
The number of tourists to Japan from Singapore increased 2.3 times over the past five years. In 2018 alone, traveller numbers from Singapore increased 8.2% year-on-year, to 437,280. Similarly, there was a year-on-year jump in tourists to Japan from India by 14.7%, from Australia by 11.6%, from Malaysia by 6.5% and from Indonesia by 12.7% .
SIA currently operates 77 weekly flights to four cities in Japan, namely Tokyo (Haneda and Narita airports), Nagoya, Osaka, and Fukuoka. Regional subsidiary SilkAir operates three weekly services to Hiroshima while SIA’s low-cost subsidiary Scoot operates 37 weekly services to Sapporo, Tokyo Narita, and Osaka. The SIA Group operates a combined 117 weekly services between Singapore and Japan.
“Japan is an exciting destination for both leisure and business travellers, and we look forward to working even more closely with JNTO through this new partnership to support further growth in travel to the country,” said SIA Senior Vice President Sales & Marketing, Mr Campbell Wilson.
“Inbound passenger traffic from Southeast Asia and neighbouring region have been growing steadily and these regions are some of the most important markets for Japan. Through this partnership with SIA, we hope to boost the number of visitors to Japan not only from Singapore but from all over Southeast Asia and the other regions including those who transit in Singapore,” said JNTO Executive Vice President Akira Ninagawa.
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