introduction
Have you often heard of the term “Inbound” lately?
“ Inbound” is a term used to indicate a sightseeing tourism of overseas visitors.So why do we hear of this term so often?
It’s because “Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games” will be held in 2020, and Japanese unique culture is now easier to be spread to the world by the growth of Social Networking Service (SNS). The increase of tourists being interested in Japanese culture raised the demand of tourism toward Japan, as it is called, “Inbound”.
Therefore, we have decided to conduct a research on the current situation of “Inbound” and consider about the future of Japan. Our approach to this research has been made though not only tourism, but also from various aspects such as transportation and retail stores surrounding the tourism. So, let’s think about our “future” together!
What is “Inbound”?
As stated above, “Inbound” is a term which refers to the tourists traveling to foreign countries. Although it is often used as a tourism term in English, it originally represents the inward movement.
Additionally, those visiting Japan are generically called, Hounichi-Gaikokujin: “Inbound” tourists to Japan.
Recently, it indicates not only the tourists but also the demand itself for the tourism toward Japan representing their consumer activity. This demand is being of commercial importance in recent years, which encourages Japan to focus on the tourist business such as strengthening its improvement measures all around the country.
Present demand for “Inbound” in Japan
We have visited four western prefectures in Japan starting from Hiroshima as a study tour. By seeing many “Inbound” tourists in all these prefectures, we have actually realized the importance of “Inbound” toward Japan.
As the demand for “Inbound” grows, the number of “Inbound” tourists increases directly with its effect these days. As you can see from the chart, Japan welcomed thirty million “Inbound” tourists in 2018, which tripled the number of that in 2013, just in five years. Although various reasons can be listed, demand for “Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games” should be the one of the best reasons among others today. A lot of hotels have been built in Tokyo. Numbers of solutions are devised such as reforming guideboards and map symbols of information to be easy-to-understand for “Inbound” tourists, which is said to generate a beneficial economic effect worth several trillions of yen.
Moreover, the total amount of the consumption by “Inbound” tourists exceeds 4.5 trillion yen taking up a large share of nearly one percent of the Gross domestic Product (GDP) of Japan in 2018, which was 533 trillion yen. As SNS being popular, Japanese culture is easily becoming widespread to people abroad nowadays. The demand for
“Inbound” is an important key for Japan.
