About the Competition
The "Visit Japan" Marketing Strategy Competition is a business competition event organised by London Business School ("LBS") Japan Club and sponsored by All Nippon Airways ("ANA") Japan for LBS Students of all programmes. The objective of the case is for participating students to develop a tourism marketing strategy for regional areas in Japan in order to attract more visitors. As LBS Japan Club, our mission is to foster innovation and provide a platform for young talent to showcase their skills and ideas.
REGIONAL PROMOTION
Beyond the popular "Golden Route" of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka, the charm of regional cities remains underrepresented. There's a limited number of well-known key contents.
UNDERSTANDING TARGET AUDIENCE
We want more understanding of the needs and barriers faced by our target overseas customers, specifically the affluent individuals in their 20s and 30s, when considering a visit to Japan.
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Opening Remark Video
Lynda Gratton
Professor of Management Practice in Organisational Behaviour
BA PhD (Liverpool)
Lynda is a Professor of Management Practice at London Business School where she directs the programme ‘Human Resource Strategy in Transforming Companies’ – considered the world’s leading programme on human resources. Her elective on the Future of Work is one of the school’s most popular and in 2016 she received the school’s ‘Excellence in Teaching’ award. For over ten years she has led the Future of Work Consortium which has brought executives from more than 60 companies together both virtually and on a bespoke collaborative platform.
Timetable on Presentation Day
12:45 PM
Open Venue
1:00 PM
Opening Remark
1:15 PM
Presentation
4:20 PM
Judge and Break
4:50 PM
Results and Feedback
5:10 PM
Closing Remark
5:20 PM
Move to Networking
5:40 PM
Networking Session
Origin Story
"In the future, I would like to contribute to increasing fans of Japan all over the world." I once said to former Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe at a round table of government officials and young business leaders back in 2015.
Global experiences both as a student and professional have taught me that the world has unparalleled respect and trust for Japan. Over time, the experiences have influenced my thoughts and actions to carry on the efforts of our great predecessors to maintain and further enhance the reputation that my country has earned.
At LBS, I was pleased to find that my cohorts have a positive impression of Japan. However, I also realised that while Japan is on the top of their wish list as a travel destination, barriers such as distance, finances or timing have made it difficult for many of them to actually experience the valuable culture in Japan and that most people are only familiar with famous contents in Japan, such as Sushi or Japanese Sake.
I felt that we would need to provide opportunities for people to familiarise themselves with Japan on a deeper level through the activities in the Japan Club, a club that has been working to create a bridge between Japan and the LBS communities. Hence, I set “Connect Closer to Japan” as the motto of the club this year, as I was appointed as President of Japan Club, hoping to realise my goal of increasing fans of Japan at the same time.
A project kicked off with the desire to create an opportunity for students to learn more about Japan and to ultimately visit the country. Given we are business school students, I concluded that a business case competition would be a great way to put our learning into practice while tying the objective together with my goal for the organisation.
Together with Japan Club Vice Presidents Nobu and Jiafu, who strongly supported the idea and objective, we made a proposal to the ANA Strategic Research Institute of our ideas. With a positive response and strong backing from the company, coupled with the support of other corporate sponsors and five other members of the Japan Club, we were able to make this competition a reality.
Although there will be only one winning team, I sincerely hope that through this competition, many students will discover something special that Japan has to offer, “Connect Closer to Japan”, and eventually become true fans of Japan. I also hope that the ideas from participants will lead to more opportunities to promote the myriad of wonders that Japan has.
Finally, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the ANA Strategic Research Institute and all our corporate sponsors, as well as the project members of the Japan Club for their great support to make this competition possible.