On 10 December, Maturi Japan Festival 2016 was held in Tumbalong Park, Darling Harbor, Sydney. This annual event has been held since 2006 to introduce Japanese culture to local Australians.
This year, visitors enjoyed Japanese cuisine and cultural workshops teaching the art of ikebana, calligraphy and origami. 35 guests also performed anime songs, group dances and taiko drum displays on stage. There were many information stalls on Japan including ones run by Fukushima prefecture and Nagoya City.
Many people visited our booth, taking home brochures and other promotional materials. Notwithstanding Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, what is called “Golden route” cities were still very popular. Many visitors also had high interest in other destinations, since many of them have been to Japan before and are planning their next visit. Although we added more brochures in the middle of the event, the restocked brochures nearly ran out before the closing ceremony, contrary to our expectations.
Prior to the event, we advertised to Japanese local governments the opportunity to participate in the festival with us. As a result, Ishikawa prefecture, Okinawa prefecture and “The Kyushu Big Four” joined us in promoting their local areas. It is one of our aims to provide local governments in Japan with the opportunity to promote their regions in Australia. We are happy to have been able to achieve this aim during the festival and will continue to support the promotional activities of Japanese local governments.
According to the event organizer, the event posted a peak of approximately 30,000 people in attendance and we were able to hand out about 7,500 brochures to visitors who stopped by our stall.
Overall the event was a great success!
