Professional support for Travelex Global & Financial Services Limited.
We're in the retail foreign exchange market, and in Japan this market is almost totally dominated by the Japanese banks. So when we're choosing locations for our forex booths, visibility is the key.
We want to be in areas with heavy tourist and office-worker traffic, and in properties that conform to the Travelex standards of space and presentation that we try to achieve with all our booths and bureaux worldwide.
With these very specific needs, we were fortunate to have obtained the services of Sanko Estate to help secure our Hibiya and Shinjuku Nishiguchi outlets.
A major obstacle for us in locating space is that we're not seeking 20,000 square feet in an office complex. We're seeking small space in prime locations for which the competition is usually fierce. The previous tenant renting the 33 square meters of space we have in Shinjuku Nishiguchi was a film developer and photo shop, for example, and our 11-square- meter Hibiya booth had previously hosted a lottery ticket outlet.
So when a tenant decides to vacate good space, the news never gets out. There is a kind of underground information network where the landlord has often already approached prospective tenants. This is where the Sanko Estate network of all Tokyo commercial properties has proven invaluable.
Using its underground network Sanko learned that the Shinjuku space was becoming available and was able to initiate negotiations with the owners. In Hibiya we happened to see that the lottery booth was closing and used Sanko's relationship to identify the landlord and present ourselves.
Property owners and landlords have to know us and like us, because the space we want is small. They also have to be persuaded that when we have good visibility, this is good for them too, because it enhances the property's overall appeal.
We aim to expand our presence in Japan to 20 booths within 2005 and to 30 by 2006. Though Tokyo is our primary focus at present, Sanko is introducing us to properties all over Japan, from Sapporo to Osaka and Nagoya.
We rely on Sanko Estate for professional support.
Barry Applebee
Director Business Partners
Travelex Global