IT WAS NOT TOO long ago when the Japanese market lorded it over the Philippine tourism landscape for the past few decades. They were quite visible in Cebu in such tourism-oriented establishments such as resorts, golf courses, karaoke joints, heritage and cultural sites, and the like.
    But nowadays, the Korean market has overtaken the Japanese as easily the top foreign visitors to Cebu, and the Philippines in general. The Koreans have proven to be more of the longer-staying visitor due to their zeal to polish their English comprehension skills, setting up business outlets and renewing their visas. Korean tourism practitioners also cater mainly to their countrymen due to the language barrier on local shores.
    The present tourism situation would have been deemed as improbable as early as seven years ago when Koreans first started casting an interested eye towards the Philippines. But a Japanese consultant brushed aside popular speculations that the declining number of Japanese visitors was mainly due to the influx of more Koreans into the Philippines. He instead enumerated several measures that would help upgrade services of frontliners when catering to the finicky Japanese market.

                            In the Manner of Speaking
     In an exclusive interview with What’s On & Expat, Joukei Fuchigami, assistant director for tourism services in the Asean–Japan Centre, related that the frontliners, especially the tour guides in Cebu, need to brush up on their guiding and communication skills so as not to offend the cultural traits and intricacies of the sensitive Japanese market.
     The tour guides use rather rough Niponggo language when addressing their Japanese guests. This can easily disturb the guests since they are used to a different and more refined manner of language. If this took place in Japan, this would mean a walk-out and lost business for the service provider,” he told What’s On & Expat.
    Fuchigami explained that in the heirarchial-oriented society of Japan, everybody uses a different lingo or set of terms when addressing individuals coming from various classes of society ranging from a vagrant to the country’s president. Thus, one should be careful to never switch lingo since the Japanese would feel insulted at having been “downgraded” or “demoted” in status.
     He revealed that it is much simpler in the English language since the pronouns and nouns are more generic in approach and applicable to almost everyone. For example, the word “you” can

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