Japanese Tourism and Travel Culture


Book Description

This book examines Japanese tourism and travel, both today and in the past, showing how over hundreds of years a distinct culture of travel developed, and exploring how this has permeated the perceptions and traditions of Japanese society. It considers the diverse dimensions of modern tourism including appropriation and consumption of history, nostalgia, identity, domesticated foreignness, and the search for authenticity and invention of tradition. Japanese people are one of the most widely travelling peoples in the world both historically and in contemporary times. What may be understood as incipient mass tourism started around the 17th century in various forms (including religious pilgrimages) long before it became a prevalent cultural phenomenon in the West. Within Asia, Japan has long remained the main tourist sending society since the beginning of the 20th century when it started colonising Asian countries. In 2005, some 17.8 million Japanese travelled overseas across Europe, Asia, the South Pacific and America. In recent times, however, tourist demands are fast growing in other Asian countries such as Korea and China. Japan is not only consuming other Asian societies and cultures, it is also being consumed by them in tourist contexts. This book considers the patterns of travelling of the Japanese, examining travel inside and outside the Japanese archipelago and how tourist demands inside influence and shape patterns of travel outside the country. Overall, this book draws important insights for understanding the phenomenon of tourism on the one hand and the nature of Japanese society and culture on the other.




Japanese Popular Culture and Contents Tourism


Book Description

Contents tourism is tourism induced by the contents (narratives, characters, locations and other creative elements) of films, novels, games, manga, anime, television dramas and other forms of popular culture. Amidst the boom in global interest in Japanese popular culture, the utilization of popular culture to induce tourism domestically and internationally has been central to the "Cool Japan" strategy and, since 2005, government policy for local community revitalization. This book presents four main case studies of contents tourism: the phenomenon of "anime pilgrimage" to sites appearing in animated film; the travel behaviours and "pop-spiritualism" of female history fans to heritage sites; the collaboration between local community, fans and copyright holders that underpinned an anime-induced tourism boom in a small town north of Tokyo; and the large-scale economic impacts of tourism induced by NHK’s annual samurai period drama (Taiga Drama). It is the first major collection of articles published in English about media-induced tourism in Japan using the "contents tourism" approach. This book will be of particular interest to students and researchers of media and tourism studies in Asia. This book was previously published as a special issue of Japan Forum.




Cultural Heritage and Tourism in Japan


Book Description

This book offers a comprehensive understanding of cultural heritage in Japan and its relationship with both domestic and international tourism. Japan has witnessed an increase in tourism, with rising visitor numbers to both established destinations and lesser known sites. This has generated greater attention towards various aspects of Japanese culture, heritage and society. This book explores these diverse aspects of everyday life in Japan and their interconnections with tourism. It begins with a conceptual framework of key theories related to heritage and tourism, serving as a useful apparatus for further discussions in the following chapters. Each chapter studies a specific aspect of Japan’s cultural heritage, from the history of Japan, the development of war sites, such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to tourist destinations, indigenous communities and their places of residence, festivals such as matsuri, to popular culture and media. Each chapter discusses a certain type of cultural heritage first in a global context and then examines it in a Japanese context, aiming to demonstrate the relation between these two different contexts. In each chapter, furthermore, how a particular kind of Japan’s cultural heritage is utilised as tourism resources and how it is perceived and consumed by international and domestic tourists are discussed. Finally, the book revisits the conceptual framework to suggest future directions for cultural heritage and tourism in Japan. Written in an informative and accessible style, this book will be of interest to scholars, students and practitioners in the fields of tourism, cultural studies and heritage studies.




Tourism Development in Japan


Book Description

This significant and timely volume focuses on the unique trajectory of tourism development in Japan, which has been characterized by an historical emphasis on promoting both domestic and international tourism to Japanese tourists, followed by the more recent policy of competing aggressively in the international incoming tourist market. Initial chapters present an overview of past and present tourism, including policy and research perspectives. Thematic perspectives on tourism and specific contexts and places in which tourism occurs are then examined. Strains of Japanese tourism such as sport, surf, forest, mountain, urban, tea, pilgrimage and even whaling heritage tourism are among those analyzed. The book also explores tourism's role in confronting difficult pasts and presents, and the challenges facing the development of tourism in contemporary Japan. A short postscript outlines some of the challenges and possible future directions tourism in Japan may take in light of the COVID-19 crisis. Written by a team of well-known editors and contributors, including academics from Japan, this volume will be of great interest to upper-students and researchers and academics in development studies, cultural studies, geography and tourism.




The Rules of Play


Book Description

The Japanese government seeks to influence the use of leisure time to a degree that Americans or Europeans would likely find puzzling. Through tourism-promotion initiatives, financing for resort development, and systematic research on recreational practices, the government takes a relentless interest in its citizens' "free time." David Leheny argues that material interests are not a sufficient explanation for such a large and consistent commitment of resources. In The Rules of Play, he reveals the link between Japan's leisure politics and its long-term struggle over national identity. Since the Meiji Restoration, successive Japanese governments have stressed the nation's need to act like a "real" (that is, a Western) advanced industrial power. As part of their express desire to catch up, generations of policymakers have examined the ways Americans and Europeans relax or have fun, then tried to persuade Japanese citizens to behave in similar fashion—while subtly redefining these recreational choices as distinctively "Japanese." In tracing the development of leisure politics and the role of the state in cultural change, the author focuses on the importance of international norms and perceptions of Japanese national identity. Leheny regards globalization as a "failure of imagination" on the part of policymakers. When they absorb lessons from Western nations, they aim for a future that has already been revealed elsewhere rather than envision a locally distinctive lifestyle for citizens.




Gastronomy Tourism


Book Description

This report looks at the concept of gastronomy tourism in Japan and shows that activities of gastronomy tourism are being undertaken across the nation. It features 18 case studies, from local Sake breweries to hotel trains, showing how Japan has achieved turning gastronomy tourism into a tool for development, inclusion and regional integration.




The Shooting Star


Book Description

Shivya Nath quit her corporate job at age twenty-three to travel the world. She gave up her home and the need for a permanent address, sold most of her possessions and embarked on a nomadic journey that has taken her everywhere from remote Himalayan villages to the Amazon rainforests of Ecuador. Along the way, she lived with an indigenous Mayan community in Guatemala, hiked alone in the Ecuadorian Andes, got mugged in Costa Rica, swam across the border from Costa Rica to Panama, slept under a meteor shower in the cracked salt desert of Gujarat and learnt to conquer her deepest fears. With its vivid descriptions, cinematic landscapes, moving encounters and uplifting adventures, The Shooting Star is a travel memoir that maps not just the world but the human spirit.




Tourism Mobilities


Book Description

This book shows how a diverse array of places around the world are being produced and made fit for tourist consumption. It analyzes tourist performances such as eating, shopping, waling, photographing and clubbing.




Read Japanese Kanji Today


Book Description

The method that has helped thousands--Read Japanese Kanji Today provides readers with a quick and simple method to learn kanji characters. Far from being a complex and mysterious script, Japanese writing is actually a simple and fascinating pictographic and ideographic system, easily understood and mastered. With the approach used in this easy-to-read, entertaining kanji book you'll soon be able to recognize and read over 400 kanji, whether or not you have any knowledge of Japanese grammar or the spoken Japanese language. The 400+ kanji characters stick in your mind thanks to an engaging text and illustrations that show the historical development and meaning of each character. The description of each kanji explains its origins and development, its modern uses, and how it is pronounced. Many examples of everyday usage are included. This new, expanded edition has added: Pronunciations Readings Vocabulary Stroke Order Practice Boxes Use Read Japanese Kanji Today to learn kanji quickly and painlessly!




Placing Empire


Book Description

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Placing Empire examines the spatial politics of Japanese imperialism through a study of Japanese travel and tourism to Korea, Manchuria, and Taiwan between the late nineteenth century and the early 1950s. In a departure from standard histories of Japan, this book shows how debates over the role of colonized lands reshaped the social and spatial imaginary of the modern Japanese nation and how, in turn, this sociospatial imaginary affected the ways in which colonial difference was conceptualized and enacted. The book thus illuminates how ideas of place became central to the production of new forms of colonial hierarchy as empires around the globe transitioned from an era of territorial acquisition to one of territorial maintenance.