Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) has begun digital promotions for ‘EXPO + Tourism’ six months before Osaka Kansai EXPO opens in April 2025, encouraging JNTO website visitors to visit the ‘EXPO + Tourism’ tour booking website that is operated by Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition.
JNTO made EXPO-themed movies for eight regions in Japan, out of which movies for Hokkaido, Chugoku/Shikoku, Kyushu and Okinawa have already been delivered, and movies for Tohoku, Hokuriku/Chubu, Kanto and Kansai will be opened by early November. The movies feature a shortcut function on the movie, a function to check tourism information out and a map function to visualize the movie itinerary.
In addition, NFTs featuring nature, foods or cultures in 10 regions, which are designed with Japanese traditional ink painting, will be offered on a digital art site. A buyer can collect acquired NFTs on EXPO 2025 digital wallet. In late November, NFTs featuring ‘Aoi Ike’ in Biei, Mt.Fuji, fishing in Tsuruga and pilgrimage in Shikoku will be available first.
Trying to send high-valued inbound travelers to local regions
The total number of foreign tourists visiting Japan from January to September 2024 reached 26.88 million, already exceeding the total of 25.07 million for the entire year of 2023. Accordingly, the total from January to September 2024 amounted to 5.9 trillion yen, which were already above the annual spending of 5.3 trillion yen for 2023.
Continuing encouraging high-valued inbound travelers to visit local regions, JNTO focus on building a domestic stakeholders’ network in addition to promotional campaigns overseas. This year, JNTO plans to organize six networking events, more than four times last year, to give business meeting opportunities to local governments, DMOs or business operators as sellers and DMCs nationwide as buyers.
Ine the event for Tohoku and Hokuriku regions on October 22, 14 sellers and 20 DMCs met each other to build business networks. JNTO will host the events for whole Japan on November 21, for adventure travel on November 22, for East Hokkaido, Kagoshima, Aso and Unzen on January 20 2025 and for Nasu and whole Japan on January 21 2025.
