Smaller Japanese cities vie for visitors' attention – and cash
Given its sluggish economic situation, Japan is beefing up efforts to attract Chinese tourists not only to its famous cities like Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, but also to rural areas.
Minami Awaji city, which is located in the south of Awaji Island in Hyogo Prefecture and lies about 70 kilometers away from Kobe, the capital of Hyogo, aims to attract Chinese visitors via efforts such as planning sightseeing routines and improving its tourism infrastructure.
Established in January 2005, Minami Awaji city has lovely natural scenery and rich hot spring resources, but it lacks a public transportation system and even in local stores, there are no point-of-sale machines.
A local government official told the Global Times on Wednesday that although the city is still endeavoring to find specific ways to attract Chinese visitors, it hopes to strengthen communication with Chinese tourists and is about to improve the local transportation system including street signs that are in both Japanese and Chinese.
Apart from Minami Awaji city, many other rural areas in Japan that have sightseeing resources are also stepping up efforts to target Chinese tourists, Feng Xinda, a local vitalization cooperator who helps develop the local tourism sector, told the Global Times on Monday.
According to data released by the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) on July 20, the number of foreign visitors to Japan increased 28.2 percent year-on-year to 11.7 million during the first half of 2016.
The number of tourists from the Chinese mainland approached 3.1 million in the same period, the most among foreign visitors.
However, Chinese tourists' consumption appears to be affected by the rising yen.
From April to June, the average individual consumption of Chinese tourists stood at 219,900 yen ($2,148), down 22.9 percent on a yearly basis, according to the JNTO.
Since the end of 2015, some Japanese media have expressed concerns that the rising yen may curb Chinese tourists' urge to shop.
"Chinese tourists are a vital group of foreign visitors to Yanaka Ginza, a business street in Tokyo, but in the past two months, the number of Chinese tourists has fallen," Seki Syouhei, the owner of a shop that sells tea sets in Yanaka Ginza, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
"Chinese tourists who come to my shop like to buy products like tea sets and chinaware, which show an interest in Japanese culture," he said. He attributed the decreasing number of Chinese visitors to the appreciation of the yen.
In the first half of 2016, the yen strengthened by about 30 percent against the yuan.
Some changes have also taken place in the shopping preferences of Chinese tourists, with a gradual shift away from the purchase of luxury bags, cosmetics and watches to daily necessities, which has reduced the revenue of many Japanese department stores.
The total sales of department stores across Japan reached 462.9 billion yen in May, down 5.1 percent year-on-year, news portal thepaper.cn reported in July.
In April, the Chinese government announced a new tax on overseas purchases to clamp down on daigou [overseas personal shoppers] and encourage more domestic spending. The tax also affected Chinese tourists' desire to buy famous brands when they visited Japan.
The explosive growth in shopping by Chinese visitors seems to have cooled a bit recently. As attracting consumption from foreign visitors to Japan is one of the government's measures to boost its economic growth, how to revive its inbound consumption by the Japanese government needs to be further pursued.
Being restricted by lackluster markets across the country, some Japanese enterprises are also trying to link tie with Chinese markets.
