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A spokesman for the JNTO (Japan Tourism Organization), Masatoshi Tsukasaki, last week announced the intention to begin a national advertising campaign to restore tourism to their country impoverished, lost due to the misfortunes suffered this year.

Indeed, the devastating tsunami that hit the East Coast and the subsequent nuclear accident in Fukushima, which caused a radiation leak, forced the closure of airports and apart from the exodus of tourists who interrupted his vacation to return to their countries, sow a climate of mistrust that is reflected, for example, the problems that had to convince pilots Motorcycle Grand Prix to come to the competition in Japan.

According to calculations by the authorities, this August visited the islands less than 30% foreign tourists in some areas reaching up to 80%. In round numbers there were only 546,800 people. Something had to do to erase that negative feeling associated danger to the land of the rising sun.

This starts a campaign to whitewash the JNTO has requested a budget of 1,100 billion yen (10.5 million euros), starting to be adopted by the Ministry of Finance in December and then in March, Nippon endorse Parliament. The first measure announced by Tsukasaki is offering 10,000 free flights to travelers who have the best plan, the program more interesting to the visit. In exchange for the tickets, round trip, will only have to tell her story on Facebook and other social networks and blogs by posting the pictures made during that vacation.

This aims to spread a more positive image of Japan to complement the normal advertising campaigns and tourism recovers the standard reaching the heights above. “The world helped Japan get back on their feet” explained Tsukasaki. “We would like to show how much progress we have made since then.”

Although the National Tourism Organization of Japan failed to reach the target of ten million visitors in 2010, today we know that China broke its record of tourists during the past year, with 8.6 million visits tourists from around the world, who came to see the wonders of Japan’s culture.

The main factors that have allowed the Japanese tourism increased by 26.8 percent, compared with figures for 2009 have been, above all, the beginning of economic recovery after the stake of the crisis and opening to international flights from Haneda Airport in Tokyo, which lies near the center of Japan’s capital than other airports such as Narita.

It is the largest increase recorded by Japanese tourists in the last half century, after rising 40 per cent of visitors in 1970, coinciding with the celebration of the Osaka Expo.

Of all visits recorded, 70 percent are attributed to Asian tourists, from that order, of South Korea, China and Taiwan. France is the European country from which most tourists traveled to Japan in 2010.