A Successful Presentation in Japan

The City of Zagreb Tourist Board successfully presented Zagreb’s tourism offer on the Japanese market, making use of an array of attractive stories about the city, promotional films in the Japanese language, photographs, as well as an attractive cultural program.

In cooperation with the Japanese branch of the Croatian Tourist Board, the Zagreb City Tourist Board organized presentations for Japanese tour-operators and journalists in late September. During the presentations held in Sapporo, Osaka, and Tokyo, Zagreb’s tourist offer was presented through an array of interesting short films in the Japanese language, as well as an attractive cultural program which featured the famous Croatian cellist Ana Rucner. The virtuoso musician performed works by several Croatian composers, and truly impressed all the invited guests with her performance of the traditional Japanese song “Sakura”.

Along with the three presentations, the Zagreb City Tourist Board also made a notable appearance at one of the most prestigious tourism fairs in the world, Jata, in Tokyo, where the Japanese expressed great interest in what the Croatian capital had to offer.

The number of Japanese guests coming to Croatia is on the rise. Events like this one, with tailor-made promotional materials in Japanese, are a good way to establish an even stronger link between the Japanese market and Croatia’s capital. The Japanese tourists occupy a very high third position in terms of the number of arrivals, immediately following tourists from Germany and the United States. As of this year, they have been coming to Zagreb by direct charter flights which, according to Yoshiyasu Sana, the president of the Japan Travel Bureau, will continue throughout 2010.