Newport Beach Courting Japanese Tour Operators

Although Newport Beach has seen growing numbers of Japanese visitors in recent years, Rosalind Williams expects some decline as the year wears on because of economic turmoil overseas.

To drum up business, Williams, who heads the Newport Beach Conference & Visitors Bureau, invited the Travel America trade show to the coastal city earlier this month. The show, designed to persuade the Japanese to take vacations in the United States, drew 40 of Japan’s major tour operators and travel brokers.

It was the first time the show has been held in Newport Beach. The bureau pursued the show’s organizers heavily over the past year, hoping to continue to attract an increasing number of Japanese tourists. Japanese tourism, which as little as three years ago was “nil” in Newport Beach, has mushroomed. Now, tourists from Japan represent 10% of the city’s tourism business, enough for Williams to hire a full-time sales manager fluent in Japanese.

Although ranking as the state’s largest overseas visitor and the biggest spender by far, fewer Japanese are traveling to the Southland, threatening revenues of businesses that depend on tourists.

Newport Beach also expects to see fewer Japanese visitors in the second half of the year, Williams said. “We don’t know the concrete outcome at this point,” Williams said, “but I anticipate a softening over the next six months.”

As a result, those who cater to tourists are targeting other markets, such as the United Kingdom and Germany, Williams said.

*

Daryl Strickland covers tourism and small and minority business issues for The Times. He can be reached at (714) 966-5670, and at daryl.strickland@latimes.com