JTB promotes Saipan on DVD-ROM

Japan Travel Bureau, the world’s biggest tour operator, will include Guam and Saipan as well as the U.S. mainland in the information service on overseas weddings using DVD-ROMs.

This means it will be able to access information on wedding ceremony requirements, available sites for the ceremony and innovative information tools making it possible for the guests to witness a virtual wedding experience.

With the popularity of millennium weddings, JTB’s overseas wedding bookings for April 2000 are 191 percent higher from the same month last year. A survey conducted by the Watabe Wedding company revealed that the value of bookings for overseas wedding in January 2000 was running at 487.5 percent compared to the previous year.

Currently, wedding information for Hawaii and Australia is accessible at JTB Sales Offices throughout Japan.

Initially, only one DVD-ROM installation was provided in JTB Wedding Plaza, but it proved so popular that many people waited to access the information provided.

JTB’s efforts to stimulate the demand for millennial weddings have been proven highly effective thus, it has launched two promotional campaigns for this year:

• JTB Millennial Wedding campaign for all those bookings made from the period January through March 2000 for overseas weddings to be celebrated between April 17 and December 31,2000. Twenty couples will be selected in the promo campaign where their hotel accommodations would be upgraded to suites. As of March 15, some 500 couples have already signed up to participate.

• JTB Wedding Fiesta was made on Jan. 23, 2000 at the Hotel Nikko Tokyo where 380 couples showed up to get information about overseas weddings along with opportunities to try on wedding dresses, watch a fashion show and consult with counselors available on the spot.

According to the JTB survey, Hawaii is still the most popular honeymoon destination among Japanese, followed by the U.S. mainland and Europe.

Guam and Saipan share an average of 7.1 percent in the popularity survey of the most preferred honeymoon and overseas wedding destinations overseas made by the biggest tour operator in Japan.

The survey for the Spring season on some 2,351 couples who have signed up at major JTB sales offices in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka for their honeymoons during the period March-May revealed that Hawaii has consistently eased out other competing destinations for the past three years with 27.3 percent.