Carolin Funck

Conflicts over Space for Marine Leisure: A Case Study of Recreational Boating in Japan

As an island nation with long coastlines and many islands, Japan has abundant resources for marine tourism and leisure. However, coastal resorts and marine leisure are less prominent than might be expected. The main reason lies in the many conflicts surrounding access to the sea and its resources. Industrial and urban development along the coastlines and a strong fishing industry combined with traditional property rights compete with coastal tourism and marine leisure for the use of coast and sea. This paper discusses the roots of conflicts between marine tourism and leisure, and other economic activities or environmental issues, as well as conflicts between different types of coastal tourism and marine leisure. To this end, it uses recreational boating and connected activities like fishing and diving to examine the issue. It was found the situation in Japan is characterised by a dense web of rights, regulations, customs and power dynamics which has impeded the establishment of marine leisure as a recreational activity. Marine leisure has, however, developed some distinct features, and many compromises have been found on a piecemeal and local basis. Such compromises may be the only way not to divide fluid space, but share it.

The innovative potential of inbound tourism in Japan for destination development − a case study of Hida Takayama

Abstract In contrast to the rapid development of outbound tourism since the 1980s, inbound tourism has played a minor role in Japan until 2002, when the Japanese government embarked on a policy of active enticement of foreign tourists. Through active promotion and pushed by economic development in neighboring countries, visitor numbers almost doubled from 4,771,555 in 2001 to 8,350,835 in 2008; since then, worldwide economic downturn, disaster, and a soaring yen have taken their toll. However, while their contribution to the overall Japanese tourism market is still well below 10%, an analysis of available data shows that foreign tourists are spread unevenly across the country. As a result, some restricted inbound clusters have evolved. In these places, inbound tourism as a new sector of the tourism market can play an important role in rejuvenation of destinations and innovation in tourism. One such destination is Hida Takayama, a historical town tucked away in the mountains of Gifu Prefecture, which is considered a model for the development of inbound tourism in Japan. An analysis of Takayama’s tourism development process identified close cooperation between the public and private sector, the integration of inbound promotion into a wider set of tourism policies, and the combination of independent efforts by the city with active use of national policies as important factors for its formation as an international destination. As a result, the city attracts tourists from a variety of regions. A survey conducted with Japanese and different groups of foreign tourists proved that they differ in motivations and behavior and, therefore, add a stabilizing element to the tourism market. Finally, interviews with key persons from tourism associations and the accommodation industry, and a survey of small-scale businesses to examine innovations induced by the increase in foreign tourists showed that an active embracement of the new market segment is restricted to a small number of facilities. Through these steps of analysis, it could be shown that the impact of international tourism on destinations in Japan is limited to a number of places, where it nevertheless constitutes an important element of market stabilization and rejuvenation. However, its influence and potential for innovation are confined to some facilities within the destination, while the many small businesses forming the tourism industry often react in a passive way.

‘Cool Japan’ – a hot research topic: tourism geography in Japan

How do changes in the ‘real’ world of tourism affect the academic world? Will an increase in international tourism open up an inward-looking research community? Do more tourists lead to more tourism research? Japan offers interesting insight into these questions. The country’s mainly domestic tourism market that has recently been flooded by international tourists, thus positioning tourism as a major growth sector and challenging a rather fledgling discipline dominated by consulting, travel agency think tanks and a tradition of detailed case studies. Although Japanese tourism has been the subject of cultural, historical and anthropological studies by non-Japanese authors, in the Japanese literature, tourism has received less attention than expected, apart from waves of interest during a leisure boom in the 1970s and a period of heavy investment in tourism facilities during the so-called bubble economy of the late 1980s (Funck & Cooper, 2013, p. 6). As late as 2011, Kureha pointed out that research in tourism geography in Japan has concentrated on individual destinations and neglected tourism behavior due to dearth of available data (Kureha, 2011, pp. 18–19). In higher education, some universities offer schools or courses in tourism in general. Tourism geography, however, is hardly visible and concentrated in a few graduate schools in the capital city area. Several academic societies focus on tourism, but they consist of a mixture of academic researchers, consultants, think tanks of travel agencies and members of the tourism industry. The biggest society, the Japan Institute of Tourism Research, increased its membership from 209 in 1989 to 526 in 2000 and to 1006 in 2017; of these, only 7.9% gave geography as one of their research fields. However, recent years have seen an increase in presentations on tourism at geography conferences, a diversification of papers published, the foundation of new academic societies for tourism with a theoretical or specialized approach, the creation of new courses and an increase in faculty members across the country. In 2016, the number of international tourists had more than doubled from 10 million in 2013 to 24 million; inbound visitors outnumbered Japanese travelers going abroad for the first time in 2015. Although this increase seems to be the most obvious reason for the heightened academic interest in tourism, the annual review of articles in all disciplines of geography published by the Japanese Journal of Human Geography offers hints for the manifold factors behind this development. The first factor could be categorized as cultural. While media have always played a strong role in domestic Japanese tourism, the spread of manga, anime and video games and their intimate connections have created new social phenomena summarized under the Japanese term of ‘contents tourism’. Obviously, this subject proves attractive for students, an age group that enjoys popular culture. As the Japanese government actively promotes such ‘contents’ abroad under the catchphrase of ‘Cool Japan’, they are shared among Asian youths and around the world. For example, in 2016, 17.7% of French visitors

Island in Transition: Tourists, Volunteers and Migrants Attracted by an Art-Based Revitalization Project in the Seto Inland Sea

The Seto Inland Sea in Japan is famous for its islands, but less so for coastal tourism. However, in recent years, the islands of Kagawa Prefecture, especially Naoshima, have received attention as a site for art tourism. Art tourism is increasingly seen as a tool for regional development, as it is expected to attract new types of tourists especially from the so-called creative classes. In Japan, it has also stimulated a new type of volunteer tourism where tourists engage themselves as volunteers in art events. Finally, it has also attracted new inhabitants to some of the islands, who mainly engage in tourism industries. This chapter aims to examine art tourism in the Seto Inland Sea in three steps, depending on the degree of involvement by visitors to the area. As a first step, it investigates the characteristics of tourists, their image of the area and their interest in art and architecture. Second, it analyses the activities and opinions of volunteer tourists involved in the 2013 Setouchi International Art Festival. Additionally, interviews were conducted with different organizations involved in the management of art tourism. Third, it looks into the characteristics of people involved in tourism businesses and the role of in-migrants from other areas of Japan in this sector. It was found that tourists are not art specialists or specialized culture tourists; however, art tourism definitely has contributed to a very diversified visitor structure different from other locations in the Seto Inland Sea. Within this structure, volunteer tourists constitute a special niche market. They too are attracted by the islandsand by chances to communicate with local people, artists and other volunteers rather than by art itself. Their high degree of satisfaction suggests that the model of volunteer tourism professionally managed by a locally based NPO is successful as a long term strategy. Finally, the development from niche to mass tourism on Naoshima created opportunities for in-migrants to establish their own business and has given the island an advantage in the nationwide competition for migrants to rural areas.

Analysing food-derived interactions between tourists and sika deer (Cervus nippon) at Miyajima Island in Hiroshima, Japan: implications for the physical health of deer in an anthropogenic environment

ABSTRACT Sika deer (Cervus nippon) on Miyajima Island in Hiroshima, Japan, are accustomed to a human environment and close tourist-deer interactions occur. In 2008, city officials banned deer feeding in response to an increasing number of human-deer conflicts. Nevertheless, this regulation remains ineffective. In this study, food-derived interactions between tourists and deer were analyzed, and a faecal analysis was conducted to examine the effects of potentially beneficial bacteria on the digestive system of deer. Over 64 hours of observation, a total of 397 tourist-deer interactions were recorded. Most interactions involved tourists’ food purchases from street stalls (49.6%). The initiator of each interaction was recorded for 267 events (67.3%), and it was found that deer initiated nearly twice as many interactions as tourists (tourists: 93 events; deer: 174 events). However, feeding occurred in only 11.5% of deer-initiated interactions, while feeding occurred in 50.5% of tourist-initiated interactions. The analysis of gastrointestinal bacterial community compositions showed that deer in the tourism district possessed a lower portion of the order Lactobacellales than deer in the non-tourism district. This was presumably due to different food sources, indicating that the human-influenced environment, of which feeding is one element, could affect the physical health of the deer.

The power of social media in regional tourism development: a case study from Ōkunoshima Island in Hiroshima, Japan

This research letter introduces a new insight into the power of social media in tourism development using a case study from Ōkunoshima Island in Hiroshima, Japan. The island has been experiencing an unprecedented tourism boom since 2014, when videos posted by social media led to an increase in international tourists in a formerly domestic destination. The results of our structured interviews suggest that tourists acquired information about the island through social media. This result implicated social media’s power in developing tourism in peripheral regional areas, which are often left out from the international tourism circuit.

Not Quite Wild, But Not Domesticated Either: Contradicting Management Decisions on Free-Ranging Sika Deer (Cervus nippon) at Two Tourism Sites in Japan

Previous studies on the conventional form of wildlife tourism have limited the discussion on wildlife management to the context in which wild animals are regarded exclusively as ecologically significant beings. With ever-increasing tourism development around the world, wildlife tourism takes place in a wide range of forms and settings beyond their natural environment. In many Asian countries, where certain species of animals have a long history of close associations with humans, the animals are often found in human modified environments. Thus, their cultural significance is expected to play an important role in management decision-making process. In this chapter, we shift our attention to wild animals whose habitats extensively overlap with human modified space using two case studies from Nara Park and Miyajima Island in Japan. Wild sika deer (Cervus nippon) found in these sites are well-adapted to the human modified environment and have close interactions with humans. A rapid growth in tourism at these locations in modernity created the challenge of managing the deer that hold ecological and cultural values simultaneously. We review the history of deer at each site, their management practices, and challenges that they face. While both Nara and Miyajima deer are considered wild, they are managed in dissimilar manner. We argue that understanding the context of wildlife tourism and the history of the human and animal relationship is a necessary component of more sustainable wildlife management for tourism.

A Review of “River tourism”

River Tourism, edited by Bruce Prideaux and Malcolm Cooper, is an edited collection of articles that examine river-based tourism in a coherent way, including aspects as diverse as fluvial hydrology...

Eine neue Identität für Regionalstädte: Deindustrialisierung, kommunale Gebietsreform und Tourismus

In recent years, many regional cities that had relied on their industrial base and central function for the surrounding areas have experienced varying forms of decline, including population shrinking and ageing. During the wave of municipal mergers, these cities have integrated many peripheral municipalities with the aim of administrative consolidation – even when there were only weak connections between them. As a result of deindustrialization and municipal merger, a new trend has emerged among regional cities to promote tourism, which has always been a prominent regional development tool in peripheral areas, as a tool for both revitalization and the integration of newly created administrative units. Based on examples from Hiroshima Prefecture, this paper examines strategies for identity and image construction in regional cities, identifies the actors involved in the development and implementation of these strategies, and evaluates their success not only in terms of tourist number, but also in terms of long-term effects on regional identities. It becomes apparent that tourism is actively promoted mainly by cities with a declining industrial base and population. However, post-merger images created by the new municipal authorities often do not succeed in integrating the local identities of formerly independent units. Furthermore, this new kind of tourism promotion is rarely accompanied by improvements of the urban environment. The private sector becomes involved in image construction only in cities where tourism is already established. Here, not only private enterprises, but also a large variety of citizen groups are committed to conserving and promoting tourism resources.