Japanese travel firms woo young unmarried women

Press, 2 June 1982, Page 15

Japanese travel firms woo young unmarried women

NZPA staff correspondent Tokyo In Japanese travel industry circles the word is getting about that the passenger is no longer the king — he has been displaced by a queen. The unmarried female office worker, the so-called ' office lady” or ofisu redi in Japanese marketing parlance, is being wooed by the industry and has become the main target in New Zealand’s bid to attract more Japanese tourists. According to a Japan Airlines spokesman, Mr Geoffrey Tudor, the average office girl is well educated, aged between 20 and 27. and expects to get married in her mid-20s to late 20s. “Most of these girls live at home with their parents paying little in the way of rent and therefore have enormous disposable incomes,” he said. “Also, most Japanese companies pay big bonuses twice yearly. The office girl is well read and carefully researches her holidays. She is highly motivated to travel abroad. “Last year the demand for overseas travel in Japan rose by only 1 per cent, but when you examine a breakdown of the sexes you find that the demand from females increased 9 per cent.” Mr Tudor said the Japanese men still outnumbered women .. travellers overseas by two to one, but the gap was closing rapidly. “Until recently the Japanese had very set ideas about where they wanted to go and what they wanted to do on their overseas holidays,” he said. “The market is now getting a bit more sophisticated. They are increasingly wanting to go to new places and do new things. “Many of the younger people want to be less organised and have more freedom to do their own thing.” The manager of the New Zealand Government Tourist Office in Japan, Mr David Lynch, gives a further reason for - concentrating promotion efforts on the office women. “There are 700,000 marriages in Japan every year and 70 per cent of the couples honeymoon overseas,” he said. “Many of them have been going to Hawaii, but that is becoming old-hat now and we hope that New Zealand can pick up some of the traffic that Hawaii is losing. “Market research here has shown that the woman is the decision-maker in deciding wdiere the honeymoon will ■ He said that his office’s magazine advertising (“We can’t • possibly afford television”) specified the appeal of New Zealand for honeymooners,. although it was not confined solely'to the honeymoon theme. “We believe it has a positive effect on both the single girl and her parents,” he said. ' ;■ '' While the office girls are regarded as the most important market for the travel trade in today's Japan, other groups are not being neglected. Mr Lynch says that the older, unmarried woman office worker is showing an interest in New Zealand and that the “silver age” — retired couples in their late 50s and early 60s — is also regarded as a significant group. One Japanese tourist not interested in New Zealand, however, is the middle-aged male. ■ “He is a bit of a failure as far as we are concerned,” said Mr Lynch. “He is more likely to be interested in the night life of Manila or Bangkok.” . ‘ Potential /' a Iso . existed among Japanese companies . which offered trips overseas as incentives for their staff. “Enthusiasm for the future of the Japanese tourist trade to New Zealand is among all those in Tokyo associated with it,” he said.

Direct air links between Tokyo and Auckland were established in July, 1980, and there are now three return flights using DCIO aircraft each week — two flown by Japan Airlines and one by Air New Zealand. Mr Tudor said that in April, the first in which Japan Airlines used DClOs instead of the smaller capacity DCBs, 3540 passengers were carried, a 67 per cent increase on the same month last year and a passenger load factor of 61.39 per cent, compared with 54.55 per cent. With their much increased cargo capacity, the DClOs carried 80,000 kg of freight, an increase of 135 per cent, and much of it was fresh produce from New Zealand destined for the Japanese market. Mr Maarten Wevers, a New Zealand diplomat in the Tokyo Embassy with special responsibilities for cultural affairs, said the direct flights had had “an unbelievable impact” on Japan-New Zealand relations. Apart- from trade and tourism, it had made a difference to cultural links and was helping to .improve New Zealand’s image in Japan. Mr Tudor said the Auckland route was “going great guns” and had produced one of the airline’s “more spectacular results" in the last year. “We are certainly very pleased with the way things are going," he said. "Although the volume of traffic is relatively small, Oceania seems to be one of the more lively sections of the route system in terms of growth.” Japan Airlines lumps New Zealand with Australia and Fiji when it talks about Oceania, and as a result its promotional efforts, unlike those of the New Zealand Tourist Office and Air New Zealand, are aimed at the region as a destination rather than New Zealand on its own. In spite of that, the current edition of the airline’s in-flight magazine contains a long article, in Japanese, on New Zealand, and a six-week $1.5 million promotional campaign for

Oceania beginning in midJune will largely feature New Zealand scenes. The airline’s advertising agency apparently found New Zealand visually more attractive, than the other Oceania destinations.

Japan Airlines is 37 per cent Government owned and flies to 43 cities in 31 countries. It also has a big share of the Japanese domestic market, carrying nearly 9 million passengers a year in special Boeing 747 aircraft

that carry 550 people at a time on a network that links five major cities. The airline’s 84 aircraft include 41 Boeing 7475, making it second only to Pan American among airlines that use the jumbos.