Training for Japanese Travel Representatives Ramped Up to Encourage Visitors to the United States
The more travel agents in Japan know about the United States, the better equipped they are to help Brand USA fulfill its mission to encourage more travelers from Japan to visit U.S. destinations.
With that in mind, Brand USA conducted a series of training sessions in five cities in Japan for nearly 150 travel agents, allowing them to learn more about travel opportunities in the United States and enabling them to pitch the U.S. as a premier travel destination to their clients.
Brand USA partnered with United Airlines to conduct the joint travel trade seminars throughout December for travel agents at the airline regional offices in Kumamoto (20 agents), Kagoshima (27 agents), Sapporo (45 agents), Hiroshima (18 agents) and Okayama (31 agents).
At each seminar, Brand USA gave a PowerPoint presentation introducing the latest information, viewed a trailer of Brand USA’s new big-screen movie "America’s Musical Journey" and utilized Media Valet Trip Kit tools to encourage the travel trade to produce new tour products.
Brand USA President and Chief Executive Officer Chris Thompson described Japanese travelers as very “enthusiastic” about travel to the U.S. In fact, a total of 3.57 million Japanese visited the U.S. in 2016, placing that country fourth overall for international inbound markets.
In addition to the training seminars, Brand USA joined with Nippon Travel Agency (NTA) to organize an “America Specialist” training session on December 7. America Specialist is an in-house training program consisting of eight full-day training sessions occurring once a month for eight months. Brand USA offered a 45-minute PowerPoint presentation to educate the 10 top agents selected from NTA’s regional offices throughout Japan.
Meanwhile, Brand USA and AB-ROAD launched a joint campaign to stimulate travel demand to the U.S. and to encourage tour planners to produce new tour products to appeal to the market.
AB-ROAD, one of the leading travel portal sites in Japan with 1.17 million users monthly, provides information on various travel tour packages offered by tour operators, as well as hotels, air tickets and destinations. As one of the most popular travel portal sites for comparing tour packages and prices, AB-ROAD allows users to compare more than 250,000 tour packages in various destinations offered by 135 various tour operators. It also features travel articles written by journalists.
With the Brand USA campaign, AB-ROAD launched a special landing page dedicated to the U.S. On that page, travel articles about the United States are being released each month through April, featuring six different regions and tour packages offered by travel operators. To attract users, each article includes a Brand USA sample itinerary and detailed information on the selected destination.
In other news:
- Brand USA and the Japanese Association of Travel Agents conducted a “America Deep Discovery” seminar in Tokyo for four days from February 20-23. A total of 26 organizations participated in the program to provide a deeper understanding about traveling to the U.S.
- The Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau from Memphis, Tennessee, traveled to Japan for a travel promotion on February 26 to March 2. Travel industry representatives and the media gathered together for barbeque and catfish.
- Brand USA held a travel trade familiarization tour for six Japanese travel representatives, who visited Georgia and South Carolina on February 5-11 to gain a better understanding about the two states so they could promote them as travel destinations for their clients.