ACCESS Inc.

President

Takashi Ichikura

株式会社アクセス 一倉隆
Work that I can be proud of as a leader

What I focus on when choosing whether I take on a job or not is if I can do that task and like myself, and do it while having fun. Especially with tourism, forgetting to have fun will cause a difference in values and perspective from the customer. I love traveling, and many of my business trips are simply a source of joy. To produce results doing what I love – nothing can beat the joy from that.

Year of Birth
1959
Birthplace
Tokyo
Name
ACCESS Inc.
Headquarters
Sumicho Building 8F, 6-7, Nihombashiodemmacho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
Founded
1984
Type of business
Japan sales agency for Retingcarz.com, overseas rental car meta search engine
url
http://www.access-jp.jp/
We are currently serving as Japan's sales agency for Rentingcarz, a total search & reservation engine for overseas rental cars. In addition, we are engaged in sales marketing for Marianas Visitors Authority Japan Office, the NYC Broadway Show (The Broadway Collection), Wyndham vacation - the world's top time share, and hotels in Hawaii and Maldives.
Our strengths are our staff's marketing know-how and networks related to tourism. Until 2016 I served as a Japanese distributor for Dollar rent-a-cars, and served as a representative of Hawaii Tourism Authority for 8 years. I take advantage of the skills and knowledge acquired during those times and apply it to new work by taking in the current needs.

I have consistently put myself in the world of tourism and marketing. Because much of my family worked at travel agencies and hotels, I was always interested in the overseas since my childhood and also studied abroad in the USA. Since I was a college student, I worked as an English interpreter and translator. I remember very well when I served as an interpreter for Rod Stewart and the Doobie Brothers when they came to Japan.

After I graduated from university, I joined a major advertising agency.After working as a marketing staff handling All Nippon Airways inbound marketing for their international route launch, I worked at the agency's overseas office in Seoul and London handling promotion targetting Japan market.After that, I served as a representative for the Hawaii Tourism Authority, and in 2012 became the representative director of our company.

For the marketing of foreign tourism offices that I engaged in a lot, I will advise on each destination about measures to improve the values seen from the Japanese perspectives. For example, Hawaii has been popular with Japanese people since long ago, but its popularity was formerly centered around Oahu's Waikiki Beach and Ala Moana Center. The destinations such as Haleiwa, the North Shore, Kauai and Maui long went without being featured, despite its great appeal. In my experience at the Hawaii Tourism Authority, I have pride that I was able to convey these "hidden" charms. Marianas (Saipan), which I am working on now, does not have a large community and a big hotel when compared with Hawaii and Guam, but it also possesses qualities that can stand against any other location, such as its blue and beautiful ocean. I am always thinking of various ways to best present these features.

Even if Americans or local Japanese people take care of the marketing, it is not guaranteed that they can fully understand the current needs of Japanese people. What tourists do on the island is diverse, including beach yoga, jogging, cycling, photo shooting with a mermaid dress for social networks, and so on. I want to serve as a bridge between grasping the needs of today and bringing out the wonderful charm of the area that local residents are unaware of.
 In Japan, inbound demand is a hot topic but the outbound demand is not growing at present. In particular, how to get young people interested in traveling abroad is a big issue. Information on the overseas has become readily available due to IT technology, but there is a sense of feeling that you do not really understand the location without actually going. Although it is difficult to convey the charm of somewhere that a person has never experienced, I believe that our company can succeed in doing this, due to our track record of conducting tourism marketing for top brands and producing results.

My role as a leader is to be committed to getting results first. We must make management decisions based on ROI and other factors, and take responsibility for the result. It is also important to manage the company with a proper attitude and not allow room for critique regarding our accountability and transparency.
In recent years, we were involved with new brands, including Rentingcarz.com, and were in the phase of resetting our work up to this point on a zero basis. The brand gradually grew, and the shifting of the work content is becoming a success. From now on, along with nurturing the up and coming, we will be entering the stage of seeking where to go next.

We are not a big company. We need to maximize what we can contribute to our customers within our limited resources. We cannot always succeed in doing this, but this is exactly why I think that we should focus on work that we can be proud of, and carry out one high-quality work at a time that leverages our achievements synergistically. Even though we are small, we are a glowing company. I feel that we want to be a company that continues to fortify new relationships while cherishing this glow.

株式会社アクセス 一倉隆
株式会社アクセス 一倉隆

*Information accurate as of time of publication.

ACCESS Inc.

President
Takashi Ichikura