Disha Shah Ghosh - Mumbai Bear Luxe Japan, a consortium of independent and niche hotels, and a DMC, has termed India as its second most important source market.
Talking exclusively to TravelBiz Monitor during his recent visit to Mumbai, Hiroyuki Miyatake, Co-Founder & COO – Bear Luxe Japan, said, that they made inroads into India last year. “The USA is our biggest source market, and India ranks a close second, followed by Middle East, apart from UK and the likes. We are working with some key trade partners in Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad. In the past couple of years, there has been a growing interest among Indians for Japan since it is largely unexplored, and still a niche destination.”
Neeru Modi, Director, Bear Luxe Japan said that they started operating 7 years ago as a consortium of luxury boutique hotels that didn’t have access to the inbound market due to the language barrier. “Hiroyuki himself has cherry picked a lot of the properties from our portfolio. The idea was to bridge the gap and market the 75 hotels in our consortium in India, and we have started getting inquiries from the Indian market.”
Besides hotel bookings, as a DMC partner, Bear Luxe offers end-to-end services, including land transport. “We also support luxury brands and participate in Cannes with the Japan National Tourism Organization. With our platform, we have streamlined information about Japan and its tourism opportunities.”
With regards to their client segments, Miyatake said, “We are serving a very niche clientele market such as Bollywood, Hollywood artists, and top 50 millionaires from India.”
Neeru said that their focus in India is on ultra HNIs, and Hyderabad is a big market for them since clients there are well-travelled and value the experiences that Japan has to offer.
“Delhi is a big market that we want to tap into, since most of our bookings from there are made by agents in Mumbai. Another area of focus for us is the Tier-II cities in India,” Neeru stated.
With regards to the food choices, Neeru, herself a vegetarian based in Japan since over 15 years, said that when the 2020 Olympics mandate was announced for Japan in 2012, the government sprang into action to create awareness about vegetarian and vegan food. “Today, every lane in Tokyo has an Indian restaurant, and availability of Indian and vegetarian food across the country is no longer a hassle.”
