The Yokohama Convention & Visitors Bureau (YCVB) has released a video featuring the charms of Yokohama based on the slogan, "Yokohama, Japan's First Port of Call," to inform the world how suitable the city is for hosting international conventions.

Yokohama was where Japan opened its port for the first time following the national isolation policy under the Tokugawa Shogun era. The city therefore has a history of serving as the door for foreign cultures and products to enter Japan and spread throughout the country. "Japan's First Port of Call" is a slogan created in 2013 to show Japan and the rest of the world that Yokohama has continued to lead Japan's technologies and businesses from when the port opened 155 years ago to the present and that it is a city with an open disposition as well as flexibility.

The video includes scenes from past conferences held in Yokohama and interviews with participants to express thoroughly the attractiveness of the city and its achievements in hosting large-scale conferences. It introduces not only the state-of-the-art technologies and traditional cultures of Yokohama but also the modern atmosphere of jazz music and cocktails, which are said to have been introduced to Japan via Yokohama.

For the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg-QMKRYjs8

Yokohama has thus far hosted numerous authoritative international conferences such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum meetings in 2010 and the 10th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research in 2012.

For comments by Prof. Hisashi Hirano, Director of the Advanced Medical Research Center at Yokohama City University who served as the Co-Chair of the Organizing Committee of the Human Proteome Organization 12th Annual World Congress, held in Japan for the first time when Yokohama hosted it in 2013:

http://www.welcome.city.yokohama.jp/eng/convention/clients/201401.php

Yokohama will host a number of notable international conferences this year. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is scheduled to hold its first session in Japan in March. The International Congress of the World Federation of Occupational Therapists and the World Congress of Sociology will be held in June and July, respectively, with more than 4,000 leading researchers from around the world expected to attend each of the meetings.

For YCVB description and testimonials of past conference organizers: http://www.welcome.city.yokohama.jp/eng/convention/

Source: YCVB