June 2002 - Yokohama lies at the very centre of Japan' s hopes for World Cup 2002, which next month is being jointly held with South Korea. The grandest stadium of the 10 newly built around Japan is just 10 minutes from the nation' s second most populous city, and the venue for the World Cup final on June 30. The city will also host three group matches � meaning that more games will be played here than any where else in Japan.

City Significance

So what does this mean for the hotels that shape Yokohama's spectacular skyline? Now a tourist attraction in its own right, the striking Minato Mirai waterfront area, that includes the Pan Pacific Yokohama and Grand Inter-Continental hotels, will feature on every television frame that introduces the city to an estimated audience of 4.5 billion worldwide.
 

A veteran hotelier with more than 30 years experience in five countries, Kenichiro Ide, GM of the Pan Pacific, was very positive when he heard the momentous decision that if Seoul was given the opening games of the competition, Yokohama would have the final. "The publicity will finally take some of the attention away from Tokyo," he says. "It is a wonderful opportunity for this city to get some exposure.

Kenichiro Ide

Living On The Edge

Ide is very keen for people to visit Yokohama for themselves so that they can appreciate the broad vistas and airy feel. He adds, "Other hotels that I have worked in, in Vancouver and Singapore, are right in the centre of their respective areas, but we are a little on the outside. When people come and see the advantage of this, the space we have, then Yokohama will be put on the map. But I am not sure if we in the city has really appreciated the value of this event." Football has always languished far behind the far more popular sports of sumo and baseball in terms of media and national interest."

The hotel's proximity to focal point such as Pacifico Yokohama Exhibition and Conference Centre (which will house the media centre) for visitors will, according to Ide, work both ways though.

On visiting Belgium and Holland, the co-hosts for the European Championships in 2000, he witnessed how journalists and fans came and went to where the games were. "We can't dream that they will stay in Yokohama for the whole month!" he exclaims.

Co-host Comparisons

There will be another Media Centre in Seoul, and the differences between the two countries present more challenges. Japan is on average about twice as expensive as South Korea, and while Japan is extremely hospitable, they are behind other Asian countries because of the language barrier � the English level is a long way behind.

Both nations made it policy to distribute stadia as widely as possible to share out the investment and benefits of the competition. Ide suggests that it is very difficult to estimate the gains in the short - term, in terms of occupancy, corporate hospitality and banqueting.

"Many of the blocked rooms and major functions have already gone to Tokyo for convenience sake, so we actually don't know who will be coming here or how many. We have allocated 125 rooms per night to the World Cup Accommodation Bureau Japan on the basis of trust."

"We have to look to the long-term. At present about 10-15 per cent of our guests are non - Japanese, but we would like to see this increase to 30-35 per cent. This may present a wonderful chance to meet those targets. But we will have to sort out Yokohama's identity problem first, and make people aware of this hidden secret ."

Event Enthusiasm
 

Masami Inoue is the PR manager at the Yokohama Grand Inter-Continental Hotel, a stone's throw from the Pan Pacific. As a member of the hotel staff as well as a citizen of Yokohama, she felt very happy that the city would be hosting a big event that attracts the attention of the world. "That feeling has not changed over time," she is careful to add. The need to exploit the publicity that the World Cup generates is also a

Masami Inoue

Although not all of these will cover the World cup, we expect many of these to report on the World Cup in some manner. From right before the opening of the games through to the final, we believe that there will be a rush of many media companies collecting information for stories, and we would like the hotel to be the focus of such publicity."

Like the Pan Pacific the numbers of various types of bookings are not very different from those of a normal year. However, the hotel has seen a slight decrease in bookings of wedding receptions at the hotel. Inoue puts this down to people's impression that the Yokohama area will be quite crowded during the World Cup. "Apart from this decrease, we have not seen any other big differences in occupancy. "

Fans Or Fanatics ?

When asked about whether football fans may be different from any other guests, Inoue is open-minded. "We do not believe that there is a difference between regular guests and football fans. Everyone has a sport, hobby, or interest that they love. While we believe that there are individual differences in levels of devotion and ways of expression, we do not believe that the football fan is a different kind of customer."

Like Ide, she sees the advantages of staging the event in terms of the city and the hotel . "By having the World Cup in Yokohama, we think that the greatest merit will be having the name of our city become more widely recognised worldwide. Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto are large cities that are well known throughout the world, but Yokohama (despite being just 20 minutes away from Tokyo) is not catching up with regard to name recognition.

"However, the final game of the World Cup will also be held here, so we believe that this is a great opportunity for not only the name of the hotel, but for the name Yokohama to be more widely recognised," she adds.