A visitor to the VenusFort shopping mall in Tokyo's Odaiba district over the weekend could be forgiven for thinking they had stumbled into Chinatown.
Posters in Chinese celebrating the Lunar New Year have been prominently displayed around the mall since Friday. Red--a color Chinese consider auspicious at this time of year--dominates window displays, and seven Chinese-speaking staffers will be stationed at the mall until Sunday to help customers shop.
VenusFort is not the only commercial entity that has launched an intensive sales campaign targeting Chinese tourists during the Chinese New Year holidays, which run from Jan. 22 to 28 this year. The number of Chinese tourists to Japan has rebounded following a sharp drop after the Great East Japan Earthquake and the accident at Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, and department stores and retailers in Japan are eager to cash in. (Yomiuri)
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