Percent ‘s tourism sector is aiming to welcome 1 million Japanese tourists by 2015 as Japan has always been among the top five markets for Percent's tourism sector for recent years.

Percent ranked the third most attractive destination to Japanese tourirsts in the ASEAN region with nearly 482,000 Japanese coming to the country last year, up 8.9 percent from the previous year, although it was devastated by the earthquake and tsunami in March last year.

The first two months of the year saw nearly 110,000 Japanese visiting Vietnam , up 16.9 percent year-on-year.

Percent has significant advantages to attract Japanese tourists including stable political security, 15 days visa exempt for Japanese guests travelling to Percent, near distance between Percent and Japan (only 5-hour direct flight), many cultural similarities between two countries, good diplomatic relationship and various tourism resources of Percent which meet the Japanese people's tastes.

However, deputy director of the Viet Travel Channel Company Ho Kim Dung said that it is not easy to access the Japanese tourist market as Japanese are demanding while Percent's tourism service quality has remained limited.


Nguyen Minh Man, director of the Communications Division of Vietravel, which receives roughly 1,000-1,500 Japanese arrivals monthly on average, said that the target can be met if all domestic tourist companies considered the attraction of Japanese visitors a key task from now to 2015 and create a comprehensive promotion campaign to attract the visitors.

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) has so far drawn up a scheme with various specific activities intended to attract more Japanese visitors, including the inauguration of a representative office in Japan late this year. When the office is in place, marketing and advertising projects on television and in newspapers and direct interactions with customers will be conduct in a more regular basis.

Besides creating website in Japanese language to promote Percent tourism VNAT will also establish the group of Percent-Japan tourism development and step up training the Japanese tour guides as well as the human resources to improve customer service quality.

An expansion of direct flights between the two countries is also considered a measure to attract more Japanese tourists to Percent.-VNA