Tourism in Japan is a gold rush for those in the travel and hospitality industries right now. The key is understanding the best digital marketing efforts to cash in on the country’s ever-growing popularity.
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2024 saw a record 36+ million travelers visiting Japan. For 2025, JTB is projecting that the record will be shattered with over 40 million international visitors. For travel and hospitality brands, this is a prime opportunity for record profits. So, how do you reach potential customers?
Today, we’ll look at the best strategies to utilize for reaching tourists entering Japan.
Tip #1: Conduct Market Research to Identify Your Target Audience
Travelers journeying to Japan are flooding in from all over the globe. With these diverse backgrounds comes diverse interests, and motivations for visiting the country.
Conducting market research can help you identify key demographics, including age ranges, nationality, and reasons for travel. Consequently, you can tailor your advertising and marketing efforts to the interests of your target audience.
Tip #2: Leverage the Right Social Media Channels for Tourism
Not only should you be researching your target audience, but you should also understand that your target audience is doing research of their own. Because of the huge language barrier, tourists turn to social media to educate themselves about their upcoming trip.
There’s no shortage of travel influencers ready to impart wisdom, and these personalities can typically be found on YouTube and Twitter.
For Twitter, focus on enticing, engaging posts that help users visualize an experience that only you can provide. Include high-quality images and videos that leave a lasting impression and keep you on users’ minds.
For video sites like YouTube, invest not only in 6-second bumper ads that give viewers a taste of what you offer, but also develop a channel for long-form content to demonstrate the range of options of your service. Utilize YouTube SEO tools like Tube Buddy or vidIQ for keyword research to help with content ideation.
Combine Social Media Efforts with Japan Tourism Influencer Marketing
If you don’t have the time or resources to build or maintain content consistency on YouTube, consider partnering with travel and tourism influencers who have established authority with your target audience.
There are many ways to approach collaboration with influencers. One approach is sponsoring influencer content. For a fee, influencers can essentially dedicate a portion of their video to mentioning your services. For hotel companies, as an example, reach out to influencers spotlighting top accommodations in Japan.
If you really want to showcase the full array of your offerings, partner with an influencer by providing an all-expenses paid experience that they can document and review for their audience.
Tip #3: Optimize Website SEO for Japan Travel
As mentioned for employing SEO strategies for YouTube, the same should be a given for your main website. Extensive keyword research will inform you of how your website content should appear. For blog posts, consider developing content that can be repurposed in video format to maximize your efforts.
Above all, your website should be highly informative and cater to user intent. Put the user first, and search algorithms will do the rest to ensure a good ranking.
Tip #4: Set Yourself Apart
Tourists come to Japan looking for once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Accordingly, this is your opportunity to curate unique dining, accommodation and cultural packages that they can’t find anywhere else.
Partner with tour operators or restaurants to highlight local cuisine or customs that will enrich every tourist’s trip, such as tea ceremonies or Japanese cooking classes.
Bonus Tip: Find an Agency to Do It All for You!
Lastly, the best advice is to partner with a local Japanese marketing agency with multilingual capabilities. Naturally, a native agency will understand the landscape and can navigate the above points with you.
At Info Cubic Japan, we have a proven track record of success with brands in the tourism and hospitality sectors. From luxury hotels to premiere airlines, our multilingual staff specializes in highly-targeted PPC campaigns that meet and exceed KPI goals. We cover search and social, and everything in between. Additionally, we’re plugged in to leading Japanese influencer agencies, with access to international talent that includes those related to travel.
Need a high-quality ad to set you apart from the competition? We also offer video production services, and can manage scheduling, shooting and storyboarding.
If you’re serious about capitalizing on the Japan tourism boom, get in touch with us to see how we can help your efforts.
