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Your Japan Private Tours' Ian Martin Ropke, Japan travel specialist

Ian Martin Ropke Founder and Owner of Your Japan Private Tours

Founder and owner of Your Japan Private Tours (est. 1990), Ian Martin Ropke (unique on Google Search), is a long time Japan travel specialist. He has been been planning and designing tours and services on all 5 Japanese islands for over 30 years. As a professional Japan travel specialist or Japan travel designer, Ian has worked with a wide range of international clients. I am a great planner and work closely with my Japan private tour package clients. Ian has experience with the elderly and physically challenged,multi-generational clients, travelers with dietary issues.

Since 1990, Ian has used his Japan travel specialist skills to plan, design and execute guided and self guided Japan private tours on all 5 of Japan's islands (Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, Hokkaido and Okinawa). Ian has studied and lived in Japan for decades. He knows Japan, Japanese culture, and Japanese people extremely well.

In a way, as a Japan travel specialist, Ian Martin Ropke is the ultimate Japan insider. He has traveled extensively all over the country since the early 1980s. He lived in Tokyo for a year and has continued to visit Tokyo and the surrounding area since the early 1990s.

Japan is one of the world's "most" unique cultures and also one of the most challenging countries for travel and business. My expert, highly personal service style can make a difference.

I has provided his Japan travel specialist skills to a wide range of clients including affluent families and couples from the USA, Canada, Australia, Singapore, the UK, and, increasingly Southeast Asia.

As a bespoke Japan travel specialist & designer, Ian works with clients interested in many key Japan travel themes. These include nature travel, traditional and contemporary culture, arts & crafts (including studio visits), everything to do with Japanese cuisine. Ian has designed walking, driving and hiking tours all over Japan (town & country. Most Japan private tour packages include Japanese cuisine experiences (from gourmet to street food), tea ceremony, gardens, religion, and everything to do with modern contemporary Japan (manga, anime, art, architecture, tech).

Ian has also provided a wide range of corporate travel services and Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Events (MICE) services to large corporations from North America and Europe.

At the bottom of this page you will find Ian Martin Ropke's publications, work history, educational background.

Ian's LinkedIn profile is here.

YJPT retail prices for Japan private tours & travel services:

Guided tours (Gt); expenses not included: 4, 6, 8 hours: Yen 39,000/1-6 people, 54,000, 72,000; add 7% for each person over 6pax; I only work with licensed guides;

Self-guided tours (Sgt); expenses not included: 2, 4, 6, 8 hours: Yen 5,000/1-6 people, 12,000, 16,500, 24,000; add 7% for each person over 6pax;

Reservations & transfer arrangement service charges:* Yen 4,800/instance/1-6 people; add 5% for each person over 6pax: restaurants (including to and from logistics), vehicle + driver, and perfect step-by-step bilingual transfer instructions from any A to any B in Japan (for example, Tokyo hotel to Kyoto hotel).

*Notes: 1. Expenses are not included in the Sgt and Gt prices quoted above (lunch, taxi, train, subway, temple entry, etc.). Learn more!

Ian's Japan travel specialist tour experience and history

As a Japan travel specialist and designer since 1990, Ian Martin Ropke been providing tour packages, tours and travel services on all of Japan's 5 islands (Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, Hokkaido and Okinawa) for a wide range of clients.

Most of YJPT's clients are families, often multi-generation families, and couples. We also work with a lot of retired travelers and many of them are doing off-the-beaten-track tours that include Tokyo and Kyoto but also Kyushu, the Japanese Alps region, Shikoku and Hokkaido. Driving tours in a rental car are a common theme but many also rely on Japan's exceptional rail and bus system. And nearly all of these older clients rely almost 100% on our unique self guided independent tours & travel services. And year by year, we have also had the privilege of working with a number of international companies and a few celebrities and luxury lifestyle travelers. For some clients, usually large groups, Ian has served as expert lecture-level guide (in Tokyo and Kyoto).

As a Japan travel specialist, YJPT provides specific and expert solutions for a wide range of traveler types and interests.

YJPT frequently works with families (many of which are multi-generational families), elderly travelers, couples, and single travelers.We also provide BLeisure travel solutions for both business travelers and accompanying family members. We have also worked extensively all over Japan with travelers requiring wheelchairs and van & driver assistance, and also with many individuals with specific food allergies and issues.

YJPT has experience in almost every facet of Japan travel & culture. Everything from deep city tour itineraries and customized craft & art tours to nature tours, and off-the-beaten-track tour packages.

YJPT: a luxury Japan private tour agency known for unique solutions

Over the past 30 years, YJPT has provided Japan travel private travel packages, tours and services to quite a few luxury travelers and celebrity clients.

When it comes to luxury travel, Japan is famous for its high-end travel attractions. These include exclusive ryokan inns with ensuite indoor or outdoor private bathing and a restaurant cuisine menu in exclusive settings. YJPT can provide guidance, reservations and all logistical requirements for this level of travel and dining.

Luxury and celebrity clients generally, but not always, private transportation (hired sedans with private drivers). YJPT specializes in these services too, including airport pickup, meet and greet, and other logistical services and guidance.

YJPT's business and corporate travel experience

Our clients over the past 30 years have also included many corporations and businesses for all business and corporate travel needs. This also includes extensive Japan conference and event experience. We have worked with individual executives at corporations like Hewlett Packard, Volvo, Fannie Mae, Google Maps, and Continental Tire. Many of our business clients were BLeisure travelers--often traveling with family members--including a billionaire sugar magnate from Mexico, steel company owners from Argentina, and a sheik from Dubai. We also have experience working with celebrities from Los Angeles, New York, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Major YJPT corporate clients since 1990

1. BAE Systems (formerly British Aerospace): From 2003 to 2009, Ian was in charge of organizing everything for BAE's 7-day cultural immersion program for top global executives (25-30 executives: all managing directors of BAE subsidiaries). BAE Systems hired us for this in 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2009. The program took place mainly in Kyoto but in 2009 it was split between Tokyo and Kyoto. For all the Kyoto programs, YJPT rented an entire Buddhist temple on a small mountain near the Westin Miyako Hotel (where the participants stayed every time). We also provided all interpreters, guides, audio visual equipment, access to tea ceremony teachers and maiko | geiko | geisha, all transportation needs, banquet dinners, as well as private travel arrangements for some executives before and after the seminar.

2. Hewlett Packard: We personally handled a 3-day tour break for a 12-person team from the Singapore office (HP's Asian headquarters) in 2004. They chose our ideas & services because they found the ideas from JTB (Japan's biggest tour operator) to be too superficial and lacking in creativity.

3. Prudential Financial: YJPT's founder, Ian Martin Ropke, was hired for Prudential Financial's annual international board meeting which takes place in a different country every year. The 2001 board meeting took place in Tokyo and Kyoto, and about 40 participants from all over the world attended. Ian was the lecture-guide for the group in both Tokyo and Kyoto.

4. AstraZeneca Estonia: AstraZeneca Estonia hired YJPT to coordinate a group of 24 participants (mostly doctors) from Estonia attending a major medical conference in Tokyo and Kyoto in the spring of 2009. We booked all the hotels for the group in Tokyo and Kyoto, handled all the transportation (in Tokyo, from Tokyo to Kyoto and in Kyoto), special banquet dinners in both Tokyo and Kyoto, and designed multiple excursion itineraries in Kyoto led by local tour guides.

Ian's Japan travel specialist publications

Ian has been writing about Japan travel, history and culture for nearly 30 years including 15 years as the Editor-in-Chief of the now defunct Kyoto Visitor's Guide. From 1997-1999, Ian assembled and edited the Historical Dictionary of Osaka and Kyoto, which is in the collections of many major research and university libraries around the world. Ian writes frequently as a Japan travel journalist and as a journalist in other areas of interest (quantum informational theory, the private travel industry, research on new AI models).

As the editor-in-chief of the Kyoto Visitors' Guide from 1995 to 2010, Ian produced roughly 90% of each monthly issue's content. This included countless detailed walking tours, many interviews with prominent Japanese people from all walks of life, and an evolving focus on compact practical Japan travel writing.

Historical Dictionary of Osaka and Kyoto by Ian Martin RopkeIan is the author of a Historical Dictionary of Osaka and Kyoto (ISBN 978-0810836228), one of the few reference sources cited in the bibliography section for the Wikipedia entry for Wikipedia entry for Kyoto, and the Further Reading section of the Wikipedia entry for Osaka. The book is a standard reference item on both cities and can be found in university libraries and other large libraries around the world.

As a guest blogger, Ian has also contributed many articles on Japan and Japanese culture for Deep Kyoto and for the Japan Visitors Guide.

As a journalist, Ian writes about Japan, climate change, philosophy and high tech themes.

Ian Ropke's, Japan travel specialist, education

Ian has a Bachelors of Science degree (1996), a Masters of Applied Linguistics degree (2007), and 40 years of experience researching and working in areas related to high technology and venture capital. Ian studied Japanese at a Japanese language schools 6 days a week from 1989 to 1992.

My Masters of Applied Linguistics degree was completed at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia in 2007.

In addition to fluency in Japanese, Ian is also fluent in German, Swedish and soon Spanish. His understanding of linguistics and foreign languages creates unique advantages for understanding other foreign cultures and how those cultures "relate or interact".

Ian's expertise in high technology (mostly from a software and AI perspective) and the venture capital industry, a 40-year informal education, has also added to his understanding of Japan (mostly a hardware culture) and the solutions he can offer clients interested in these areas.

Save time & have a better time anywhere in Japan with my travel design expertise (since 1990). 100% designed for who you are & what you want! Learn more! Ian Martin Ropke (unique on Google search) | Whatsapp: +1-415-230-0579.