KANAZAWA -- The Kanazawa municipal government has used virtual-reality technology to create videos that draw people into a wholesale market or sushi restaurant counter.
The local government plans to use the videos for promotional purposes overseas, with the goal of drawing more foreign visitors to Japan ahead of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
City officials filmed two 3-minute videos using a special camera. The first features fish auctions at a wholesale market operated by the city, while the second allows viewers to watch a chef prepare sushi from across a counter. Wearing special glasses and headphones, audiences can listen to the energetic back and forth between auctioneers and customers, or view the deft skills of sushi chefs, as if they were at the venues.
"I felt like the sushi was in front of me, and I couldn't help reaching out my hand," Kanazawa Mayor Yukiyoshi Yamano said after watching the video. "I hope people will become interested [in Kanazawa] by watching the videos, which would encourage them to actually visit the city."
The videos debuted at a food culture seminar held in Seoul in early May.
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