The following is the fourth and final installment of a series looking at efforts by the tourist industry to survive the economic effects of the novel coronavirus outbreak.
In the early 2010s, the Kuromon Market known as "Osaka's kitchen" saw an increase in vacant storefronts as customers declined. Then, as more foreign tourists started to visit, the shopping district in Chuo Ward, Osaka, underwent a drastic transformation.
As a number of stores started allowing customers to eat fried skewered food and grilled seafood dishes outside their storefront, skewered beef priced more than 1,000 yen per skewer sold like hot cakes. At its peak, an average of 30,000 visitors per day passed through the shopping district, 90% of them tourists from abroad.
The area garnered a lot of attention as a successful tourism draw among overseas visitors.
Today, almost all the food stalls in front of stores are gone and no customers are seen eating while walking through the shopping district.
This year's "one-coin market" days began on Oct. 22 where customers can buy goods such as fresh seafood and beef for 500 yen. The district is making efforts to lure more Japanese customers from nearby areas, but the number of visitors that day was less than 20% of last year's figure for the same event.
"Unless we get customers to come back, the Kuromon Market will cease to exist," said Yuichi Kitaoka, a senior official of the shopping center promotion association.
"We benefited more than anywhere in Japan from international tourists, so that might signal a slow recovery," Kitaoka said.
-- Overseas overdependence
In 2003, then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi declared a policy to make Japan a tourism-oriented country, saying that tourism resources should be used to revitalize the economy and invigorate regional areas.
This policy was also positioned as a main pillar for the growth strategy under the Abenomics economic policy promoted by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The government has tried to attract tourists from overseas through such measures as relaxing visa requirements.
In 2019, the number of tourists from overseas hit 31.88 million, about six times the 2003 figure of 5.21 million. Tourists from overseas traveling to regional areas outnumbered those visiting the three major metropolitan areas of Tokyo, Nagoya and the Kansai region in 2015. Nearly 60% of tourists from overseas went to regional areas in 2019.
For regional areas that had experienced downturn because of the low birthrate and economic slowdown, these tourists were saviors.
In Gifu Prefecture, Takayama was popular among visitors from overseas for its famous buildings more than 100 years old. So companies based outside the prefecture built a succession of hotels, improving the ratio of job openings to applicants to 1.86 in December 2019 from 0.99 in fiscal 2013.
The powder snow on the ski slopes of Niseko, Hokkaido, have attracted many tourists, with the number of overnight guests from overseas jumping to a peak of 210,000 in fiscal 2017, a growth of about fivefold over 10 years. The population in Niseko is also on the rise.
Such excessive dependence on overseas tourists has brought about side effects.
Aiming to mimic the success of Niseko, the village of Nozawa Onsen, Nagano Prefecture, promoted efforts to draw more visitors to its ski resorts and experienced a surge in overseas tourists. So, the Nozawa Onsen Snow Resort decided to heavily invest about 3 billion yen for a new gondola, which is set to open in mid-December.
"We have no choice but to attract domestic skiers," a village official said.
However, the number of domestic tourists has leveled off for several years. Some complain that the atmosphere of an old hot spring resort has been lost because of an increasing number of restaurants for overseas tourists. Without tourists from overseas, it will be difficult for the village to recover the investment.
In Kyoto, the surge of overseas tourists had caused congestion on public transit and a deterioration of manners, leading to a so-called tourism pollution problem. There are numerous signs written in Chinese and English areas around Kiyomizudera temple in Higashiyama Ward.
"The signs undermine the traditional scenery of the old capital of Kyoto," an official of a local neighborhood association said. "This could lead to Japanese tourists staying away from the city."
-- Still aiming for 60 million.
The central government set a goal of increasing the number of overseas tourists to 40 million in 2020 and to 60 million in 2030. Achieving the goal for 2020 is impossible, while the government said it would maintain the goal for 2030. However, it is unclear when people will able to safely travel overseas.
The U.N.'s World Tourism Organization forecasts that it will take 2-1/2 to 4 years for international tourism to recover.
David Atkinson, the president of Konishi Decorative Arts and Crafts Co. who is involved in the government's tourism strategy, points out that, given the decline in population and domestic tourists, overseas tourists will be essential in the future.
He added that what is important is the amount of spending, not tourist numbers, and that local officials should take the initiative to come up with tourism strategies that can work as a business model.
"Rather than aiming for a return to pre-pandemic levels, this is an opportunity to get back to basics and identify regional resources and traditions," said Akiko Kosaka, a senior researcher at the Japan Research Institute. "The question is whether they new values can be added, such as allowing longer stays and offering special experiences."
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