Posted: 21/09/2015 Author: Santa Fe Relocation Services

Our General Manager for Japan and South Korea, Martin Giles, was recently featured in a Japan Today article and shared the Santa Fe journey in Japan with them.

Martin himself is an expat and moved to Japan in 1991. He now heads up our operations out there and splits his time between Japan and South Korea equally. Our service is all about taking the stress out of the move, such as helping to get visas or even find a new home. Our settling-in services help expatriates to meet new people, learn about the culture and the language too. Our orientation program helps people to feel comfortable much quicker than going it alone.

Over the last year, our Japan business has seen very positive growth. We believe there are a number of reasons for this growth, for example the weakening of the Yen or the companies that we work with increasing the number of overseas assignments. In fact, our Global Mobility Survey research reported an 8% net growth in assignment activity to Japan over the last year. A trend that we believe will drive further growth is the greater number of Japanese companies that are choosing to expand into overseas markets. Moreover, Japan is increasingly being seen as an affordable city for expats. An annual poll recently ranked it as the 11th most expensive place to live down four places from last year and from a few years ago when Tokyo was ranked as the most expensive .

Something to watch will be the impact of the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea and the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. From our previous experience this will mean increased immigration processing times, lower availability and higher cost for housing, but the good news is that we have dealt with this before and so we have an Olympic strategy set in place to deal with the hiccups it can cause.

Housing and lifestyle in Japan is quite different and so coming with the same expectations as what you have in your home country may not necessarily work. For example, a "mansion" in Japan means an apartment rather than a very large house (an actual mansion is called "teitaku"). Luckily, for our clients that have already made this mistake, we are able to offer long-term storage solutions.

Whilst getting lost in translation can cause teething issues, so can the notorious amount of red tape that comes with a move to Japan. To help overcome this, we offer customers support to help guide them through all processes to allow for a quick and smooth move. Our destination guides are a particularly good reference for anyone making the move and are now available on our app on Android and Apple stores.

Our team always go the extra mile, whether it's taking their shoes on and off at house entrances whilst juggling a grand piano, to navigating the narrowest roads in Japan to get people's furniture to them- our customers are at the heart of what we do. To find out more about how we can help make your move to Japan easier, contact Martin on the details below:

Martin Giles

General Manager

Phone 1: (82) 2 797 3383

Phone 2: (82) 10 4692 3383

Martin.Giles@santaferelo.com

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