The future od Inbound＞Regional Inbound Measures＞Chubu Region

Chubu Region

zone in Japan following the metropolitan zone centered　around Tokyo and Kansai area centered around Osaka. Each prefecture’s efforts being made towards tourism are as follows.

There is Chubu Centrair International Airport in Aichi prefecture. Its central city, Nagoya is the only place where Nozomi bullet train stops in Chubu Region. The main tourist resources are historical sites such as Nagoya castle, Inuyama castle,　Atsuta shrine and amusement facilities such as port of Nagoya. They provide multi-language information especially to Asian countries through tourism websites. Additionally, the promotional activities are conducted for westerners in time with the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
Gifu prefecture has tourist resources unique to mountainous area such as the world heritage site, Shirakawa-go and old townscape of Hida Takayama. Their efforts toward “Inbound” tourists is the door-to-door sales activity towards travel agents in Southeast Asia. Cooperating with Tokyo in time with “Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games”, they are providing tourist information with Mountaineering Associations of Toyama and Nagano prefectures.

There is a world famous mountain, Mt. Fuji, the world heritage site in Shizuoka prefecture. Also there are many hot-spring resorts continuing since old times in Izu peninsula holding plenty of tourist resources. Although Shizuoka is a prefecture extending widely from east to west, many of the tourist resources are located on the east side. Therefore, tourists can visit those sites easily with the tours of metropolitan area, which is an advantageous position compared to prefectures in Chubu Region. The Chamber of Commerce & Industry and the shopping streets in the city center are spreading the information of invigorated areas for the regional activation. Moreover, they conduct promotional activities to Taiwan. They are also loaning out Wi-Fi routers for free to “Inbound” tourists and translating their website into multi-languages.

There are abundant resorts for tourists to enjoy all the year round such as Karuizawa and Hakuba in Nagano prefecture. It is also easy to access by Nagano bullet train from the Tokyo area. They are improving the environmental improvement of accepting tourists with the government-private cooperation and conducting effective promotion activities by developing the experience-centered tourism and by country-by-country strategies.

We asked questions Hotel worker in Nagano prefecture.

At the Lodge in Nagano

Q: Which country are the guests from?
A: Tourists from abroad hardly visit this Inn. Since the owner cannot speak English, it may be difficult for them to accept “Inbound” tourists.
Q: How did you host them before?
A: Although three groups of overseas tourists visited the Inn last year, someone was able to speak Japanese.

“Kurumayama Kogen Skypark Ski Resort” in Chino City, Nagono:

Q: How many “Inbound” tourists do you have?
A: From December to March, during winter skiing season, 10% of 120,000 visitors are “Inbound” tourists. From April to November, during non-skiing season, 3% of the 170,000 visitors are “Inbound” tourists.
Q: What is the purpose of their visits?
A: Of course skiing during skiing season and enjoying the wild flowers such as Hemerocallis esculenta or Scabiosa japonica in non-skiing season.
Q: What efforts do you make for accepting “Inbound” tourists?
A: We use VoiceTra, the Tourism Agency’s App as a communication tool in order to communicate with them.

We asked the people in Aichi prefecture the following questions!

Nagoya castle

Q: Which country are the visitors from?
A: Approximately 400,000, which is more than 20% of total annual visitors are from abroad and many of them are from Asian countries such as China, Vietnam and Taiwan. Because of the recent Rugby World Cup, there are many visitors from New Zealand.
Q: How many “Inbound” tourists do you have a day?
A: While there are 3,500 overseas visitors on weekdays, there are 20,000 on weekends and holidays.