Japan's travel industry is stepping up efforts to cash in on Mt. Fuji’s listing as a Unesco World Heritage site, which is expected to create “special demand” just as the summer holiday season nears.

East Japan Railway Co., in collaboration with Fujikyuko Co., will halve the fares for foreign visitors who travel by its trains and buses from Tokyo’s 23 wards to the fifth station on Mt. Fuji from July 1. A similar campaign last year sold 1,600 tickets.

“We hope to improve on that figure this year,” a JR East official said.

On Sunday, Prince Hotels, Inc. launched a special accommodation plan for 15 rooms at the Prince Hakone in Hakone, Kanagawa Prefecture, that offer a view of Mt. Fuji. The room charge, 22,300 yen (US$228) per night per person, is about 20 per cent lower than the regular price. The “223” figure represents a play on the Japanese pronunciation for “Fujisan” when represented as numerals.

Japan Travel Bureau launched on June 6 a four-day tour for foreigners, in which participants trek about 100 kilometres from Mt. Takao in Hachioji, western Tokyo, to the top of Mt. Fuji, accompanied by a guide. Tour fees start from 248,000 yen ($2,500) per person.

Hato Bus, a company based in Ota Ward, Tokyo, has recorded a nearly 70 per cent year-on-year rise in reservations for its 13 travel plans for one-day trips from the Tokyo metropolitan area to Mt. Fuji over the July-August period. The tour bus operator will set up three more tour courses to Japan’s highest mountain, starting Monday. Reservations for its climbing tours to Mt. Fuji that start next month have doubled from the same period in 2012.

“Reservations have been coming in at an unusually rapid pace,” a Hato Bus spokesperson said.

Since 2008, the number of people climbing Mt. Fuji has hovered at about 300,000 each year, and the figure in 2012 was 318,565--an 8.6 per cent increase from the previous year. The figure is expected to sharply rise this year.

“When new World Heritage sites were listed in the past, we received a surge in inquiries about our tours,” said an official of a Kinki Nippon Tourist Co. affiliate in Sumida Ward, Tokyo.