‘On-going long-term programmes to support ANA’s growth in India’
India-Japan marks 2017 as the year of Japan-India friendly exchanges. Both countries want to have more people-topeople exchanges and want to deepen and strengthen their bilateral ties. On this occasion, Free Press Journal decided to catch up with a Japane
Excerpts:
Do you plan to conduct any activity as part of ‘2017 the year of Japan-India Friendly Exchanges’?
As of now, there is nothing special. But as and when Japan National Tourism Organisation (JNTO) will carry on any activity we would join them.
With 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the pipeline, is there any expansion plan for ANA?
It is a headquarter matter. But outside of Japan, we do not have anything special as of now.
In Japan, we are expecting expansion of another airport. We are looking at some international routes for expansion as well. ANA might increase more flights and the frequencies of the existing flights or will add new destinations, however, we still have to finalise the routes. These would be ANA’s focus for 2020. However, ANA has not taken a call on its final strategy.
Do you plan to increase the number of flights from India that involves Jet Airways?
This is a headquarter matter in the end. It depends on the demand that both parties (ANA and Jet Airways) receive for passenger and cargo movement between two countries. Of course, ANA can consider direct flights to Japan if the demand picks up further in the future.
How is the demand like in the summer period (April-May)?
From India to Japan, the visitors have been increasing especially in April which is a cherry blossom season. This is the season when many Indians go to Japan. It is not limited to mice groups but include families, newly-weds and so on. In AprilMay, we see a rise in number of tourists travelling from India to Japan. After summer, next peak season is during Diwali season. Then the demand is weak.
Lately, there has been an increase in not just leisure trips but also business trips as well. The rise in business trip is attributed to the growing relations between both the countries.
There has been an increase in mice (Meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) movement which is why we are also focusing on mice groups now. The growing number of tourists have been due to the changes Japan has been making to meet the needs of the India tourists— from hotel stay to foods offered in restaurants.
We will see the demand picking up further when JNTO releases communication targeting the Indian travellers. This communication will be through their website which will be out this month. As part of increasing the communication, we plan to release Japan-centric advertisements with JNTO.
What are the trends that ANA has seen in cargo business?
The demand for cargo is huge in the Indian market. At the same time, there is a lot of competition in the cargo space. We entered the cargo business last year with Boeing 737 operations which has cargo space allowing us to venture into that space.
From Mumbai market, we have seen demand for pharma products. In this (summer) season, we see demand for mangoes. There is also demand for automobile components. But there is a lot of competition in the space.
We have seen that we have space when it comes to India to Japan movement of goods and passengers. But from Japan to other destinations, there is space constrains.
From India to Japan, the off-peak season for cargo and passengers is same.
Who are your competitors in the space?
The competitors include players that fly from Mumbai (or various destinations of India) to any other part of the world. In cargo space, there are a lot of options for other destinations.
What are the challenges for ANA in India?
There are not so many Japanese in India. In Mumbai, there are only 600 Japanese. As ANA is a Japanese airlines, we do not see a lot of potential growth coming from Japanese. So, we shifted our focus to Indian travellers through various forms of communication to attract them to Japan.
What are the various activities organised by ANA to attract mice groups from India to Japan?
We have seminars for travel agents. We believes that relations with travel agents is very important. Indian travellers/tourists are unaware of ANA but most of the travel agents are well-versed about ANA and what we offer to our customers. So we need their support to increase awareness about our services and products.
What is the growth in number of tourists from India to Japan?
In 2015, it was 1 lakh tourists travelling from India to Japan and in 2016, it was 1.23 lakh tourists (according to JNTO data). For ANA till the end of March 2016, we operated 737 business jet with a capacity of 46 passengers. So it was not possible to get leisure travellers but after that we started operation of Boeing 777, which has 169 seats. This allowed us to focus equally on business travellers, leisure travellers and mice groups.
What is ANA’s target for FY 2017-18?
We have our internal targets. I can say that we are aiming at increasing the number of passengers. Along with passenger business, we have set our focus on cargo business as well.