A Bulgarian tourism information centre opens doors in Tokyo

The Minister of Tourism Nikolina Angelkova took part in the unveiling of Bulgaria’s tourism information centre in Tokyo. This took place by virtue of an agreement signed between the Ministry of Tourism and the Japan-Southeast Europe Business Association (JSEEBA). Our government will not pay anything towards the centre’s support. The expenses for all scheduled activities will be covered by JSEEBA, with the Ministry of Tourism having committed to provide up-to-date promotional materials, to be disseminated at the tourism centre in the Japanese capital.

„It is very important that Bulgaria is now physically present on Japan’s tourism market, with all Tokyo residents and visitors now being able to obtain up-to-date information about tourism opportunities in our country“, Minister Angelkova said. She emphasized that Bulgaria was famous among Asian tourists with its rose oil and yoghurt, but that they would now be able to discover many other attractive forms of tourism.

Japan is in the top 50 of generating markets for Bulgarian tourism and ranks 41^st during the period January-August 2016 with over 9 000  tourists, which is a 16.5 % increase compared to the same period of 2015. According to the national statistics institutes, in 2015 our country was visited by a total of 12 362 Japanese nationals. „These numbers indicate that there is growing interest and we can deepen our traditionally good relations in tourism. I am positive that the opening of the information centre is an important step in this direction“, Nikolina Angelkova added.   

Kihachiro Nishiura, President and Managing Director of JSEEBA, introduced the attendees to the operations and services, which the Bulgarian tourism information centre will provide to Japanese nationals. He highlighted the still untapped potential to increase the mutual tourist flow and indicated that his organization will continue work in this direction. He was thankful for the good communication with the Bulgarian government and the support for this initiative’s implementation. A welcoming address was also read by Yassuto Kavarabayashi, Deputy Commissioner of the Tourism Agency at Japan’s Ministry of Earth, Infrastructure, and Tourism.

The tourism centre is located in the Japanese capital’s downtown area, and its official unveiling ceremony was attended by more than 90 people, among them MP’s from the Japanese Parliament’s Lower Chamber, representatives of ministries, businesses, the tourism industry, ambassadors, etc.