February 24th 2019 O.A.
Kenjinkai Officers Installation
Sunday, February 10th was the Japanese Prefectural Association of SoCal’s 2019 New Years celebration and officers installation at Quiet Cannon in Montebello.
The Japanese Prefectural Association of SoCal is a nonprofit organization founded in 1964. They have 38 prefectural associations and approximately 9,000 members.
Other than helping one another, the association‘s mission is mutual understanding of US and Japan, giving out scholarships and volunteering during natural disaster.
The installation of new officers for 2019 took place at the event. Happy Mizutani took the post of former chairman, Yoshinori Akutagawa.
Happy Mizutani has been the president of the Gifu Prefectural Association and has been a member of the prefectural council.
He stated “I’ll do my best with the support of the former officers.”
Representatives from each Japanese American organization said their New Years greetings, and former chairman, Yoshinori Akutagawa stated his appreciation.
And each representatives presented what is number one in Japan from their prefecture.
145 members attended and celebrated the new year.
JNTO Japan Seminar
Wednesday, January 30th was a PR seminar held by the JNTO at Japan House in Hollywood.
JNTO is a government agency that promotes Japan to customers overseas.
The event was entitled Japan Product Seminar and promoted to the tourism industry individuals.
According to JNTO, 70 percent of the tourists from the US visits Japan for the first time, and most of them visit the metropolitan area.
The seminar focused on Kansai area and Hokkaido, which were devastated by natural disasters of hurricane and earthquake last year. Current situations were explained with safety and local charms being promoted.
JAL also did a presentation of their new service provided at routes heading to Osaka starting on March 31st.
According to JNTO, 30 million tourists visited Japan last year, which is a new record and they are aiming to reach 40 million tourists for next year’s 2020 Tokyo Olympics.