Japan launched a reboot of its Visit Japan tourism campaign on Friday, which is almost two years after the deadly earthquake and tsunami hit the country, according to Yahoo! News. The reboot is titled "Discover the Spirit of Japan," and the main goal of the campaign is to inform the world that the country has recovered from the 8.9-earthquake that killed almost 16,000 people and caused billions of dollars of damage.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Visit Japan campaign, and this year the focus is on the people of Japan. They made headlines all over the world after they dealt with an earthquake, a tsunami and a radiation crisis in quick succession in March 2011.
The new campaign will focus on celebrating the creations, characters and common life of the Japanese people told through the traditional Japanese "Awa Dance." It's a photo-and-video campaign that can be viewed on the new web site. It will consist of heavy social media involvement, with the web site available in 17 different languages, including English, Korean and simplified Chinese, containing over 160 videos promoting major tourist attractions.
"Discover the Spirit of Japan" also has a celebrity ambassador, with singer Carly Rae Jespen, famous for the hit song "Call Me Maybe," participating in the tourism campaign.
What makes Japan special is its people," Terrie Lloyd, an Australian-Kiwi businessman who is part of an advisory panel for the Japan Tourism Agency (JTA). "Visiting a Japanese restaurant in your country is not the same as visiting Japan.
"You have not visited Japan until you have come here," Lloyd continued. He has lived in the country for the past 30 years.
Shuichi Kameyama, the division director for JTA international, told Yahoo! that he hopes the campaign appeals to Singaporeans.
"Tourist arrivals from Singapore has been one of the slowest to pick up," Kameyama said. People from Singapore still have reservations about the dangers of radiation. "One of the reasons why we did a photo contest is so that non-Japanese people could show to the world that the country is safe."
Kameyama assures potential visitors that the country is safe.
"It's perfectly safe to travel to Japan," he said. "99.999 percent of Japan is fine.
"And you can see how tourism numbers are slowly back to reaching the same as pre-disaster levels," he added.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
