The Hindu Business Line : Talks soon for more direct India-Japan flights

"Some time in October", the civil aviation authorities of India and Japan will sit together and talk out the possibilities of increasing the number of direct flights between the two countries, according to the Ambassador of Japan to India, Mr Yasukuni Enoki.

Speaking at the Indo-Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Monday, Mr Enoki said that the Japanese embassy in India had worked towards getting the Japanese civil aviation authorities to get into negotiations with India for this purpose.

The Ambassador observed that the number of direct weekly flights from India to Japan was just five, compared to 100 to the UK, 60 to Germany and 24 to the US.

"We have to dramatically increase the air frequency," Mr Enoki said.

Visa procedures

The Japanese Embassy would ease visa procedures to promote Indian tourists, he said.

"When you apply for a visa, sometimes you have to produce your bank account — very humiliating," the Ambassador said, adding that as an experimental measure, the embassy would make application simpler at least for tourists who go on package tours, where the tour is already paid for.

Observing that the number of outbound tourists from India was increasing at the rate of one million tourists a year (now around 7 million), Mr Enoki said that he was dismayed to see that the number of Indian tourists visiting Korea was more than those visiting Japan.

Woo more tourists

Noting that "this is due to lack of effort on our part," he said that Japan needed to do the "little little things" to attract tourists from India.

He observed that Indians usually travelled together as families and tended to stay in one place longer rather than flit from place to place.

Providing vegetarian food was also important, he said, adding that there were a number of Indian restaurants in Japan and they could make vegetarian food available.

He said that Indians had a misconception that travel in Japan was expensive.

"Of course, it you stay in a five-star hotel in Tokyo it will be expensive, but Tokyo is not everything. Even in Tokyo there are many ways you can travel cheap," he said.

Mr Enoki said that the embassy was also working towards increasing the validity of multiple entry visas from three years to five years. "We are seeking reciprocal action (from Government of India) on this," he said.