UNWTO Regional Support Office Moves to Nara

UNWTO Executive Director Zoltan Somogyi visited Japan in December to attend the relocation ceremony of UNWTO´s Regional Support Office (RSO) for Asia and the Pacific from Osaka to Nara.

Seventeen years after its establishment in Osaka as a center of regional collaboration and support of UNWTO´s activities in the Asia Pacific Region, the RSO was relocated to Nara at the end of 2012, with an opening ceremony held at the new headquarters on the 13^th of December.

The ceremony, attended by UNWTO Executive Director Mr. Zoltan Somogyi as well as Mr. Tadaaki Asanuma, Chief of the RSO and Mr. Norifumi Idee, Commissioner of the Japan Tourism Agency, was a great success.

¨Our friends in Japan, particularly the Governor of Nara Prefecture and the Mayor of Nara provide great support to the Regional Support Office, UNWTO is continuously grateful for the close collaborations we have with the Regional Support Office and now with its new location in Nara, we are confident that UNWTO´s close working relations with Japan will be even stronger.¨ said Mr. Somogyi.

After the opening ceremony he also met with JTA Commissioner and its top management team in Tokyo to discuss with the particular issues of organizing TSA and Statistics Conference in Japan, the programme of work of UNWTO´s Regional Programme for Asia and the Pacific for 2013 and in particular the Maritime Silk Road project, involvement in the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) and sharing of tourism expertise between UNWTO headquarters and the RSO.

Mr. Somogyi also met with Mr. Jungo Kikuma, Chairman of JATA as well as Mr. Masafumi Nakamura, President of JATA and reconfirmed that UNWTO will support the JATA by co-organizing a seminar on the challenges of the Asian tourism market during the JATA World Travel Fair and invited JATA Chairman to the 25^th Joint Commission Meeting being held on 12 – 14 April in Hyderabad, India.

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