Japan tourism conference aimed at new Maine visitors

SOUTH PORTLAND — Maine’s tourism industry is exploring the possibility of wooing the Japanese.

The potential for such visits prompted the Japan America Society of Maine and the state Office of Tourism to jointly host the state’s first Japan tourism conference Tuesday in Portland.

Called “Far EastDowneast: Maine’s Japanese Tourism Connection,” the conference featured a dozen speakers from Boston and Maine who offered a glimpse of the sometimes-comical challenges tour operaters face in hosting travelers from a different culture.

Translation can often be difficult; the Old Sturbridge Village historic attraction in Massachusetts once published a Japanese-language map that identified rest rooms as restaurants.

Married Japanese couples do not sleep together and would be dissatisfied with a hotel room that has only one bed.

And because the Japanese often take sponge baths, bathroom floors are apt to be soaked unless hotel operators suggest that the visitors use the bath tub.

“I’ve learned some things about their culture the hard way,” John Shade, sales manager for the Ritz Carlton in Boston, told about 40 hospitality and tourism professionals.

Diane Andrews, sales director for The Samoset Resort in Rockport, said many people in tourism are deterred from soliciting Japanese visitors because of inexperience in serving people from that culture.

But speakers said Tuesday that people overestimate the challenges and do not realize that prompt, courteous service generally satisfies the Japanese traveler.

An estimated 3,000 to 4,000 Japanese visited Maine last year, which represented a small fraction of the international tourists who came to the state.