Ashley Harvey
Partner & Co-Founder of Infinitude Hospitality
Ashley is the Co-Founder and Representative Director for Japan. He arrived in Fukuoka, Japan in 1997 staying for 3 years. In 2000 he moved to Singapore and Hong Kong on a range of sales and marketing projects in the hotel and tourism industries. During this time, he worked closely with Fairmont Hotels, The Raffles Hotel in Singapore and the Kowloon Shangri-la and Langham in Hong Kong. He built robust sales and marketing strategies primarily focusing on driving incremental revenue through F&B strategies.
In 2012 he returned to Japan as Country Manager Japan & Korea for VisitBritain. Based out of the British Embassy Tokyo and working closely with a range of British and Japanese government and private sector businesses he drove Japanese and Korean visitation to Britain to their highest levels in 15 years. He worked on the London Olympics 2012 and Rugby World Cup 2015.
Switching to inbound in 2016 Ashley worked in Nagoya to lead Central Japan’s tourism development. He worked under the Chairmanship of Ted Toyoda. Much of his work was around the development of tourism products, especially hotels. He worked with a number of Japanese and International brands. His work ensured Nagoya and the surrounding area now has an extensive range of hotel products. He advised both regional and national governments on Rugby World Cup 2019 and Tokyo Olympics 2020.
In 2022 he worked on a real estate development master plan in Saudi Arabia. This multi-billion-dollar project set in motion the development of 1800 new hotel keys and 2200 villas and apartments in the southern region of Al Soudah. Returning to Japan he set up IHJ in 2024 and has since had hands-on experience in hotel management and pre-opening of properties in Kyoto & Hakone.
He graduated from the University of Reading, following up with an MBA from the University of Leicester and in 2022 completed a Mini MBA in Marketing. Ashley holds Japanese Permanent Residency and spends most of his time in Japan since 2012 and is the Country Director for Japan and co-founder of Infinitude Hospitality Japan KK.