TAKING A HOLIDAY ON THE JOB
Nomura Securities of Japan responded to the increasing internationalization of the world financial markets in a novel way. It set up a travel agency in 1973.
The Nomura Tourist Bureau (NTB) organizes lecture tours around the major financial institutions and industrial centres of the world. Originally, the NTB provided cheap travel for jet-setting Nomura executives only, but soon anyone could join a touring party, whose size can vary from two to 400. Last year, 20 trips were made overseas and about five domestically.
Each trip has a specific theme. Most have a financial flavour, but they can concern any topical issue, ranging from property development in China, or the future of western society, to expansions in specific businesses. Individual trips are advertized either by Nomura or in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the major Japanese financial paper with a circulation of 1.3 million.
A recent party to London of 17 people included two from Nomura and an assortment of others, including an academic, an owner of a computer games factory and a variety of fund managers and industrialists. According to Nasami Nakano, assistant director of the bureau in Tokyo, they would not expect more than 10% of a tour to comprise employees of Nomura.