Kitty-chan lends her Sanrio star power to a part of Japan that often gets skipped by international travelers.

Japan’s most famous airports are Narita and Haneda in the Tokyo area and Kansai International in Osaka. However, there are a number of convenient regional airports that can be useful travel hubs as well, such as New Chitose Airport, Akita Airport, and Hello Kitty Airport.

Yep, as of this month the Sanrio star has expanded her famously wide range of promotional and endorsement activities to include an airport on Japan’s southwestern island of Kyushu. As of April 13, Oita Airport, in Kunisaki, Oita Prefecture, has officially renamed itself to Oita Hello Kitty Airport.

An official ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on Sunday, attended by such luminaries as Oita governor Kiichiro Sato, representatives from Sanrio and airport operator Oita Air Terminal Co., and, of course, Hello Kitty herself, with My Melody and Kuromi, who are having a big year themselves, also in attendance.

As part of the rebrand, special interior and exterior decorations featuring the Sanrio crew will be going up at the airport, with the full array slated to be in place this July. That’s also when new bus service will be added linking Oita Hello Kitty Airport with Sanrio Character Park Harmonyland, a Sanrio-themed amusement park in the Oita town of Hayami.

With Oita being famous for its many hot springs, the airport has a photo spot where you can snap pictures of yourself inside a jumbo-sized bath bucket with Kitty-chan and her pals…

…and it’ll be using Hello Kitty luggage tags too.

Naturally, there’s also a selection of Oita Hello Kitty Airport merch, which can only be purchased at the airport or Harmonyland, with keychains, clear files, stickers, and T-shirts among the offerings.

The renaming isn’t going to be a permanent thing, however. It’s meant to coincide with the 2025 World Expo, which opened in Osaka on April 13. With an expected increase in the number of international travelers in Japan’s central Kansai region during the expo, Oita is hoping that borrowing Hello Kitty’s star power will help them notice that the prefecture has an airport that’s just a quick flight from Osaka, and that some will be convinced to go check out a prefecture that often gets skipped by inbound tourists, in part because Oita isn’t on the high-speed Shinkansen rail network.

The World Expo continues until October 13, and while there doesn’t appear to be an officially announced ending date for the Oita Hello Kitty Airport theming, we can probably expect it to go on at least until then.

Source, images: PR Times
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