Message from Organizer
Tetsuro Yamashita
President, Asian-Pacifio Tourism Exchange Center(APTEC)
The Asian-Pacific Tourism Exchange Center (APTEC) is a supporting organization of the World Tourism Organization (WTO). A major pillar in our operations is regional tourism promotion centered on the Kansai area.
We project promotional strategies for each block, prefecture and municipal area. The actual promotion is based on this.
Nevertheless, there are big differences from area to area, Iet alone seeds of tourism, history and environment. Hence, regional tourism promotion cannot be summed up in a single argument. Quite to the contrary, there is a very wide and deep diversity to the promotional approaches being taken by individual areas as well as the problems they each embrace.
With this mind, APTEC decided workshops this year would better if we could get closer to the "area" and if speakers and participants could interact with one another. So, we planned the program with sectional workshops of a very limited number of persons, hoping to help solve specific problems by raising the participant's problem-awareness and fomenting his interaction with speakers and other participants. Workshops were held in two places： Mie Prefecture, home of the Ise Grand Shrine, and Shiga Prefecture, where found Nagahama city, the stage of the Kurokabe, a regional promotional model.
This is our inaugural year as an organization and the kick-off year - as so to speak - of Japanese tourism. With this project, we are taking our first steps knowing that there is plenty of room for improvement in the years to come. Nevertheless, through these workshops, we want to bring tourism promotion closer to the region.
I wish to express my deepest appreciation to the National Tourist Office of Spain, the China National Tourism Administration, Mie and Shiga Prefectures and all of the speakers for your collaboration in this event.
Lastly, Iet me thanks The Nippon Foundation whose support has made this event possible.
