The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) plans to carry out a full-fledged campaign to promote “Noh-Haku” or “farm stay tours” in Japan for international tourists this year.
MAFF’s “Noh-Haku” campaign is aiming at informing inbound tourists of great fun staying at a traditional Japanese farmer’s house to experience rural life in an agricultural community or a fishing village.
Two kinds of 30-minute TV programs will be produced this year to be broadcasted on overseas TV channels, introducing traditional performing arts, local cuisines, farm works and peaceful country scenes in Japan.
MAFF’s “Noh-Haku” TV programs will come up this autumn on TV channels in Asian countries sending a number of visitors to Japan.
Japanese celebrities popular to Asian people as well will be casted as reporters in the TV programs who make Asian people feel a familiarity with “farm stay tours” in Japan.
MAFF also plans to organize a “Noh-Haku monitor tour” inviting representatives of travel agents and top bloggers in Asian countries, expecting they will stir up publicity about enjoyable and pleasant features of farm stay trips in rural Japanese villages among the people in their respective home countries.
“It will be most vital for us to successfully attract international tourists to the farm stay tours. We wish to make Japanese rural villages better known by running an aggressive publicity campaign for Noh-Haku in foreign countries,” officials of MAFF’s division of interaction between urban and rural areas emphasized.