Japan's Muslim Friendly Environment, A Strong Pull For Malaysian, Indonesian Tourists

From Caroline Jackson TOKYO, March 2 (Bernama) -- Coupled with the weakening Japanese yen that gives visitors from ASEAN countries more purchasing power, Japan's Muslim friendly environment has seen a substantial growth in inbound tourists, especially from Indonesia and Malaysia. Japan is currently among the top five main destinations of most member states of ASEAN, which is moving towards establishing the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), a regional economic integration by 2015. ASEAN-Japan Centre's (AJC) Tourism and Exchange Division director Dananjaya Axioma said the new trend was attributed to a growing interest from ASEAN countries partly due to the big progress for the Japanese side to host Muslim tourists. He said educating Japanese tourism stakeholders on how to welcome Muslim tourists from ASEAN by having more awareness to provide better facilities had paid dividends. "Malaysia has done such sessions... For example it is now easier to find Muslim facilities like prayer room which is available at Narita Airport here and restaurants providing halal food," he told a group of ASEAN journalists on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) of Japan media programme here recently. All 10 ASEAN member states and Japan are members of the Tokyo-based AJC, which was established in May 1981 aimed at enhancing economic partnership as well as vitalising tourist traffic between ASEAN and Japan among others. He said ASEAN as an entity, comprising the six member states of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam, recorded 1,602,200 out of the total 13,414,000 tourist arrivals to Japan last year - an increase of 39.4 percent from 2013. The figures did not include those from the four remaining ASEAN countries of Brunei, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. Dananjaya, who is from Indonesia, said Muslims accounted for about 60 percent of Indonesian visitors and 40 percent for those from Malaysia, who had been granted free visas of up to 90 days' stay. Besides Malaysia, Japan has relaxed visa requirements for citizens from Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia since last July. In addition to organising tourism and investment-related seminars in various localities in Japan in cooperation with local governments, he said AJC also distributed Japanese promotion materials in Thai, Malay and Indonesian languages that gave information on Muslim practices. During the seminars, he said expert speakers would discuss how ASEAN tourism and aviation would change after the AEC is created. Meanwhile touching on Japan's Muslim friendly stance, MOFA Foreign Policy Bureau National Security Policy Division deputy director Akiyama Kohei said the government and people understood the circumstances leading to the slaying of two Japanese hostages by the terrorist group, Islamic State (IS) in January. He was asked if the incident, which also involved the beheading of a journalist, had caused a negative impression on Muslim countries in Japan. On the contrary, he said Japan would continue to enhance humanitarian assistance in the Middle East and support countries in the region to fight IS. (photoBERNAMA) -- BERNAMA