About Prime Travel & Tour

Mr Nishimura is an exceptional visionary. He is constantly driven by mission and purpose to push himself out of his comfort zone, despite obstacles and challenges. Embracing change, he has an unstoppable passion that drives him to succeed and always seeks to exceed the expectation of his customers and employees. He continually encourages his team as well as those around him to strive for greater heights and never give up in the face of adversity.

When Ven Nishimura (or Ven-san), 69, Managing Director of Prime Travel & Tour Pte Ltd, talks about his company and his achievements, he seems like a 21 year-old. Enthusiastic and full of ideas and aspirations for the travel industry, it is hard to keep up as to what his mind is racing to do next. Hailing from Japan’s southern island of Kyushu, made history with Singapore Airlines in his earlier years when he was the first to initiate direct flights between Singapore and Tokyo. Brimming with determination to increase passenger traffic from Singapore to Japan, he started Prime Travel & Tour Pte Ltd in 1979. He worked hard to establish his company as the foremost expert on travel to Japan to stimulate and promote tourism to Japan. Soon, his accomplishments were recognised and he became a roving ambassador for the island of Hokkaido and a frequent speaker on travel industry circuit.

When it comes to work, Ven-san commands loyalty by giving loyalty. A recent survey marveled that 75% of the staff has been with the company or 5 years or more. But he questions whether he needs to challenge his staff to strive for better remarking “perhaps, they are too comfortable!”. Clearly, he wants his staff to share his work ethos and to be the best that one can be.

This philosophical nature of Ven-san, permeates all aspects of his daily life and it is infectious. To him, the goal of life is to be able to contribute “perfectly” to society. And by “perfectly”, he means that perfection is an illusion that we create for ourselves – it does not exist in reality, but is a theoretical end goal. It is the desire to attain perfection that constantly drives us to unknown areas and pushes us beyond the limitation that we subconsciously set for ourselves. He quizzes “You need to ask yourself, ‘Did you live?,’ if the answer is ‘No’, then you are not done yet.”

As for the continuity of the company, Ven-san understand that people come and go, but what remains are the values that transcend boundaries; and which need to be communicated to all who works with him. He frequently reminds that one needs to consider different opinions and perspectives, “if you are a circle and I am a square and we use a straight ruler to measure our worth, you are only going to see one of my three sides and I am only going to see a single point of your entire circumference. You know what we need? We need some string.”