Former beauty queen and Bollywood actress Dia Mirza has been appointedto promote Japan by Japan National Tourism Organisation (JNTO) and Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) to increase the number of Indian tourists in the country.
An event to celebrate the 60 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries took place in New Delhi on Tuesday. Mirza was also present at the event.
"I feel a strong connection to this land and feels privileged to be associated with it," she said, according to Deccan Herald.
After 2011 Tsunami, Japan has made tourism as one of their main priorities for uplifting the country's economy, the newspaper reported.
In the first six months of 2012, Japan has witnessed a 21 percent increase in the number of Indian visitors visiting the island nation as compared to the same period last year.
"India is one of our main focus regions. Despite the tsunami and earthquake in 2011, Japan received over 60,000 Indian visitors. We hope to increase the number to 80,000 in 2012," Daily Mail quoted JTA Commissioner Norifumi Idee as saying.
For the first times since the twin natural disaster in March 2011, the number of visitors has also exceeded the pre-disaster level. According to JNTO statistics, the numbers of total tourist arrivals for June 2012 were 686,600, which is an increase of 1.4 percent over the level recorded in same period two years ago.
"It is a remarkable development for JNTO reassuring that our marketing activities in India are in the right direction. India will continue to remain our one of the key focus markets and we expect continuous increase in the number of Indians visiting Japan in coming months," Motonari Adachi, Executive Director of JNTO, Singapore Office said.
