Kyoto (TAN): The prefectural government in Shiga is making efforts to attract tourists there from the nearby Kyoto city, which is very popular with tourists, The Kyoto Shimbum reported.
Shiga prefecture is easily accessible from Kyoto and has tourist destinations such as the Hikone Castle and Lake Biwa.
The Shiga government plans to open a tourist information centre near the JR Kyoto station this year.
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According to the report, the Shiga prefecture government, which earlier focussed on promotions abroad now plans to attract tourists who are already in Japan, especially from the nearby Kyoto that sees more visitors than it’s infrastructure can comfortably handle.
At the tourism information kiosk, the government will promote Shiga with video clips and posters highlighting how the place was different from Kyoto’s attractions in a bid to inspire tourists to visit it.
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“We will thoroughly promote Shiga to make it a travel destination choice after Kyoto and Osaka,” The Kyoto Shimbun quoted an official of the Shiga prefecture government’s tourism and exchange bureau as saying. “We plan to carry out the promotion for around two to three years to assess needs and effects.
Japan tourism growth graph heads upwards
The tourism industry in Japan is on a high with it seeing an unprecedented 31 million foreign tourists in 2018 and the numbers are only expected to climb in the coming years.
In spite of its great potential, the archipelago country has not been among the foremost choices of international travellers because of problems such language issues for English-speaking tourists, the country being prone to natural disasters and it not many business establishments accepting cashless payments.
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“We realize there are many Western tourists worried that Japanese society is not quite ready for English-language communication,” says Hiroshi Tabata, head of Japan Tourism Agency (JTA), the government organisation that guides the country’s tourism strategy.
“To this end, we will boost our effort to provide multilingual information and make full use of translation-related tools and apps,” he told The Japan Times in an interview.
Japan will host several big-ticket international events in the next few years that is expected to attract even more foreign tourists. These events include the G-20 summit and Rugby World Cup in 2019, the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in 2010 and the World Expo in Osaka in 2025
