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Fewer tourists > less money > cut services > less attractive > less tourists.... etc


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My local town used to have a lot of tourists coming to the onsen, a very pretty park with lots going on and a traditional looking town area.

 

The tourist numbers have been down year on year now for I hear about 15 years and the town has gone from being fairly well off to not well off at all, if the locals are to be believed.

 

Problem is, with less money, they are 'turning off' some facilities and the place is looking so much less attractive and well kept than it was when I first came here.

 

I asked some people about this and they said that the town was trying to save money, because it has less to spend, and so some of the tourist things are the first to be cut.

 

They said they understood that this would mean the place was less attractive for a potential tourist, but the response is that old chestnut, shikata ga nai.

 

doh

 

Ask them how they intend to bring themselves out up from this rut, and it's a 'dough shiyou' kind of response with shrugged shoulders.

 

It's sad seeing stuff like this happen before your eyes, but really frustrating when you also hear about how much cash is wasted on nonsense.

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Even in places where tourist numbers have been increasing again like Niseko/Kutchan they still have no overall vision or plan or really anything to continue and take advantage of the growth. The only growth industry in Kutchan that the Japanese are involved in is more pachinko parlours, which help to suck the lifeblood out of this community. If all the money flushed away on playing pachinko went back into local businesses, I'd reckon this place would be thriving.

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who are the guys running pachinko? is it yakuza? theres the rumor only retired policeman can own a pachinko place which i suspect is a Gaijin Myth.

 

I hearby trademark the term Gaijin Myth smile

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Interesting. Tourism is fickle, but that's no reason for a community to lack vision. Tourism is a minor part of the Oishida economy. We have matsuri, hanabi and now the rock festival (yay) but this is really only local stuff.

 

While I've been here, the city office have cleared the tacky area around the station. The roads have been straightened and widened, and the station environs landscaped. There's no sense of a community in decline, rather investments being made for the future. It seems to be paying dividends, because Oishida is attracting manufacturing investment.

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Folk living in Hokkaido make less money than those on Honshu. Farmers are facing more expensive fertilizer, feed, and diesel. Fishermen have more expensive fuel. People in tourism face higher airfares and customers with less disposable income. Everyone faces skyrocketing heating costs. The average Hokkaido household uses 2,000 litres of toyu a year. If you compare that with income, I think that means the average household is in fuel poverty (defined as 10% of income on energy). In that situation, scaling back spending on attracting the "potential tourist" mightn't be a bad move. You can't really compare things to fifteen years ago, because the whole country was just coming out of the bubble back then. There were fewer old people, more people in full-time work instead of arbeit, a lower cost of living, fewer imports from China, less offshore manufacturing by Japanese companies, ....

 

This mightn't be the most popular opinion, but there is often scope for people to do things for themselves instead of waiting for a bureaucracy to do it for them. It shouldn't take much work to keep a park or a traditional part of town looking nice, for example, and the whole community would benefit, assuming that they are genuinely bothered. With composted waste, plant cuttings, and an army of schoolkids, it doesn't have to cost very much either. All it takes is a bit of resourcefulness and initiative.

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Part of it would simply be the general trend of de-population and decline being faced by rural communities everywhere around the world. Not every place has sufficient beauty or charm to make it a travel destination. The build-it-and-they-will-come approach isn't going to work for everyone, even in Japan where every town seems to think it is famous for something.

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Definitely. Everywhere is famous for something.

 

Though Hokkaidough did say that those numbers have been decreasing for 15 years, so sounds like it used to be 'popular'.

 

Where abouts are you Hokkaidough?

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Originally Posted By: Mr Wiggles
All it takes is a bit of resourcefulness and initiative.


If it's a town with an aging population, or a place that is becoming depopulated as the kids seek their futures in the big city, initiative becomes a hard wrought commodity.
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