Ideasabound

Luxury and chain Hotel industry has had a boom of late in Tokyo. At the same time many hotel companies are saying to their marketing team, "launch a Facebook page" and "get on social media" without giving them the proper budget, time or training to do it right. Recently I wondered what makes a good Hotel Facebook page? What is the market make-up? In Japan, why do so many hotel Facebook pages seem to be disconnected from the larger brand? Why do Why? The traditional marketing department has been put in charge of the system without understanding who to target and how to use it to generate sales. They are still thinking and working in the old hierarchy and thought process. But one of the key problems is they talk to the mirror and not to a wide audience. Most hotels in Japan depend on agents to sell rooms so they feel they don't need to appeal to the traveler - that's left up to the agencies. Instead the marketing and sales teams focus on selling bridal ...

Last year I examined the length that Japanese Prime Ministers have remained in office. On Sunday December 17th, Japan replaced Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and the lower house of the government with members of the Liberal Democratic Party which is not really Liberal but ultra nationalistic and conservative. What does this mean? At the end of my last post on Japanese prime Ministers, I wished Noda good luck at lasting longer than one year. Well he did make it past 1 year in the number sense. The Noda government lasted 475 days. So now Japan will have a new Prime Minister...but wait we have had this guy before. Welcome back Shinzo Abe. Abe has, before even moving back into the Prime Minister's residence, pissed off China and Korea by claiming he wants to change the constitution so that Japan can have a standing army instead of a purely defensive one. Members of his party want to deny the atrocities Japan committed in WWII. But Japan is facing an economic crisis. The ...

Jinternet (n) =blend of the Japanese word for people “jin” (人/hito) and “internet”. 人ターネット An ever growing network of friends of different backgrounds and walks of life from which one can share life lessons and knowledge. To jinternet (v) the process of meeting new people, sitting, talking, asking questions, listening and learning. Jinternetting is done in person. Neat and Simple, isn't it? Well I wish I could take full credit for it but I cannot. The idea of Jinternet came from a local friend by the name of Kusakabe Katsuhiko, a carpenter and father of three. While on a taiko and shishimai trip to Ise Shrine, we became acquainted and shared many perspectives on the world. He has not seen much of the world but grasps ideas through meeting people. He said, “I can’t use the internet worth a damn but I can use the Jinternet pretty darn well.” He explained that people use the internet to look things up and learn. He prefers to ask questions and listen. He knows that if the perso...

So I haven't posted since October when I joined Japantourist.jp . When the site launched on November 4th I was just a simple partner trying to learn the ropes of a new industry. Before long I got involved with social media marketing of the site and dove head first into a field.  In university I had taken one marketing class and liked it. I had also helped my girlfriend with some of her marketing projects. Though I had done journalism and taught myself HTML, living in a rural community in the mountains of Japan had left me disconnected with much of the ex-pat community and made me relaxed in my skill set.  "Time to study up!"  With only access to the web I started sitting in on webinars, reading eBooks and blogs and looking in on LinkedIn groups. But as a hands-on learner, the best approach was to just try everything and be creative.  Everything I read deals with either B2B or B2C models but Japantourist doesn't fit either. In fact it includes but both. - Regula...

So Japan has a new prime minister; the 8th since 2000. Many feel that Japan has a high rotation of Prime Ministers which has created uncertainty in the economy, a lack of coherent policies and distrust for government in general. But the real complaint coming from people, especially those who do not understand the system is, "Why does Japan change Prime Ministers more often than most people buy new cell phones?"  But really, how does Japan compare to other parliamentary governments? I decided to crunch the numbers on the number of Prime Ministers since 1945 (end of WWII) and the average number of days per Prime Minister. I compared Japan , The United Kingdom , Canada , Australia , New Zealand , Denmark , India , Thailand and Italy . (data from Wikipedia) Average Days in Office since 1945   Days   Days   Japan  708   Denmark  1322   United Kingdom  1776   India  1296   Canada ...