Hong Kong's Ananda Wing On Travel (Holdings) has formed a tourism joint venture with Japan Air System (JAS) to tap into a burgeoning mainland market. Hiroyuki Murai (left), managing director of JAS in Hong Kong, signed the deal with Ananda Wing On chairman Chan Yeuk-wai yesterday. With an initial investment of HK$1 million the joint venture, Wing On JAS Nice Wing, will focus on Japan as a destination for SAR and mainland travellers. General manager Steve Fung said the number of mainland tourists travelling to Japan was expected to increase to one million in the near future, and the venture would 'easily gain at least 25 per cent of the market'. At present, the tourist quota for Japan was 4,000 per month, but this was expected to change soon, Mr Fung said. Wing On at present holds a 10 per cent to 15 per cent share of this market. 'JAS is the most rapidly expanding airline in China and that expansion of the China network is one of the main purposes in creating this joint venture,' Mr Fung said. The airline had flight routes from Japan to Kunming, Xian and Guangzhou and planned to extend its reach to Beijing and Shanghai soon. In Hong Kong the joint venture would provide tailor-made travel services for customers to tourist spots as yet unexplored by the SAR market. 'We are looking more and more at the smaller cities and villages that Hong Kong people will really enjoy, but do not even know about right now,' Mr Chan said. 'Right now people just go to the same places and aren't aware of what else is out there.' The partnership with JAS would also enable Wing On to provide competitive air fares for domestic travel within Japan, Mr Fung said. Ananda Wing On, the largest travel group in the SAR, claimed to have held about a 30 per cent market share of about 400,000 Hong Kong tourists who travelled to Japan last year.