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Tokyo games postponement hits Olympic goods makers

The postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics has impacted sales of licensed goods. (Shutterstock)
The postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics has impacted sales of licensed goods. (Shutterstock)
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25 Jul 2020 07:07:45 GMT9
25 Jul 2020 07:07:45 GMT9

TOKYO: The one-year postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics due to the coronavirus pandemic has hit makers of official goods in Japan, including traditional crafts.

There are some 6,360 official licensed goods as of the end of June, according to the games’ organizing committee.

Six official stores selling the merchandise have closed due to the pandemic, and 17 more closures will happen next month.
 

“We’ve had lots of struggles,” Takaaki Watanabe, the 14th-generation head of a daruma doll marker in Shirakawa in the northeastern prefecture of Fukushima, said of the pandemic. Its products are one of the licensed goods.

The company, Shirakawa Daruma Sohonpo, saw its sales in April plummet about 80 percent from a year before, according to Watanabe, 28.
 

Sales of Olympic goods are also stagnant as “the postponement made people less interested in the games,” he said.

But the company has seen signs of sales recovery thanks to its efforts, including opening up new sales channels.

Referring to the company’s plan to open a new tourist facility in April next year, Watanabe said,

“We’ll be able to promote the official goods extensively.”

“We’ll pick ourselves up after falling down, just like a daruma doll,” Watanabe said.

“Whether lucky or unlucky, I’ve been given more time to provide my products,” Hiroshi Matsui, who has been making Edo sensu folding fans for some 50 years in Tokyo’s Edogawa Ward, said of the Olympics postponement.

Matsui, 73, said that he has been working on a new Olympic merchandise that will be released later this year.

“Athletes will take part in the Olympics through competitions, and we’ll do through traditional crafts,” he said.

Hideo Mimura, 70, head of Meister Promotion Corp., an Edogawa company that promotes traditional crafts including Matsui’s fans, said, “We hope that Japan will take coronavirus measures that will set a good example to the world and go ahead with the Olympics next year.”

JIJI Press

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