N.Z.’s Tokyo tourist office is difficult to find

Press, 15 July 1980, Page 20

N.Z.’s Tokyo tourist office is difficult to find

By BRONWEN JONES in Tokyo New Zealand’s anxiety to attract Japanese tourists is far from obvious when considering the siting of the Government Tourist Bureau’s office in Tokyo. The tourist offices of other countries are mostly in Tokyo’s central business district and all are in areas where many people pass by. But' New Zealand’s office is in the New Zealand Embassy, a littleknown ' building surrounded by a maze of narrow streets in one of Tokyo’s select residential areas. It is a 20-minute walk from Shibuya, the nearest train and subway station, or a 40-minute ob-

stacle course from the central business, district.

The Western system of street names and house numbers does not apply, and even if the way on foot is known directing

taxi drivers is made impossible by the complex one-way system.

Clearly marked maps are available at the embassy, but these are useful only on subsequent visits or to compare the route first taken to see where vou went wrong.

Mr D. W. Lynch, the New Zealand Government Tourist Bureau’s manager in Japan, believes a shift to t-he central business district would bring an increase in tourism that would more than compensate for the high rents. He still hopes- a move can be made, although a survey done when he arrived in Tokyo eight years ago agreed that the office should be in the embassy only temporarily. He has made several reports to the New Zealand government since then, showing that the shift is necessary.

"We are working in a competitive market and people have a wide choice

of countries that are better known and cheaper to visit.” he savs.

Travel agents have an inordinate control of the travel industry in Japan and one way they can be convinced to’ promote New Zealand is by customer demand. But when people are sent to the embasst for more information on New Zealand they give up because it is so difficult to reach. As well as the problem of site there is the psychological barrier ot being in an embassy.

New Zealand’s tourist office is the only one in Tokyo situated in an embassy, and travel industry people do onot associate embassies with travel information. They are afraid of the bureaucracy and obstructiveness notorious in other embassies, Mr Lynch says. However, he feels there is a good side to New Zealand’s promotion. Trav-

el has been made more attractive by the direct flights and lower fares introduced by Japan Air Lines on July 5. Air NeuZealand will begin a similar service on August 1. Japan Air Lines is spending $l-5 million a year for the next five years on promoting New Zealand, and the embassy is holding travel trade seminars in Japan in conjunction with the two airlines. Mr Lynch says.

As well as this interest is being stimulated by an automatic five-screen audio-visual theatrette set up in the cafeteria of Sunshine City, a large building complex in Ikebukuro. a suburb of Tokyo. A Japanese passport office and the International Tourism and Travel Centre is in the same complex. Also, about. 6009 people who work in the building and who have lunch in the cafeteria are all potential customers. Mr Lynch says.