Our team at Inside Japan Tours

The sun never sets on the InsideJapan Tours team (well, maybe on Sundays) as we have offices in Bristol (UK), Broomfield, (USA), Brisbane (Australia) and Nagoya (Japan). On this page you can meet the people behind our Japan holidays and tours.

We have a wide range of backgrounds and interests, but you can be sure that the one thing that ties us all together is a love of Japan, Japanese culture and a passionate desire to share that with other people.

From the accounts department, through the travel consultant teams to the tour leaders and guides on the ground, you can rest assured that everything we do is to make sure you have the best possible experience of Japan.

Ayako Koide
Japan Office Manager
Email: [email protected]
Call: JP 052 968 1135
Location (Nagoya, Japan)

Along with Alastair and Simon, Ayako is a founding member of InsideJapan Tours - although perhaps she didn't realise it at the time!

A good friend of both the Directors from their time living in Toyota City, Ayako agreed to help them out with researching hotels and guesthouses for the company's first tours back in 2000. When a customer enquiry came in to help design a personal programme in Kyushu, it was Ayako who provided the means to make it happen, supplying rail tickets and organising tours. She was very quickly enlisted as a full-time member of the team, and today she is at the heart of InsideJapan Tours' Japan office operations.

Ayako was born and bred in Nagoya, where she continues to live to this day. Her earliest experience of foreign travel was as a member of a children's choir, when she toured around Europe in 1986. Back then, Germany was still divided - and she remembers being terrified as her tour bus was inspected by a soldier with a huge gun as they crossed the inner border! Ayako's later experiences were thankfully less nerve-wracking, and she spent a very enjoyable year living in England - where she felt very lucky to experience something of the Britpop era.

When she's not deploying her supreme skills of organisation to ensure that all our programmes run without a hitch, or maintaining our excellent relationships with hundreds of hotels and inns all across Japan, Ayako loves listening to music and watching baseball.

What are your top tips for those thinking of visiting Japan?

"If you don't like sushi, don't worry - we have plenty more great food! My personal favourites are soba noodles and sweet cream rolls from the konbini (convenience store).

"I also recommend bringing a parasol if you plan to visit Japan in the summer, as the sun can be incredibly strong."

Relive a favourite moment in Japan...

"It's hard to choose one in particular! I have great memories of visiting the Tsukechi Valley in Gifu Prefecture, Hagi in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Matsue in Shimane Prefecture and Kakuozan in Nagoya.

"In Kakuozan, there are lots of nice little shops, cafes, temples and old Western-style houses. I'm a big fan of Western-style architecture built in the Meiji, Taisho and early Showa eras, so it makes me happy just to see those old, beautiful houses."