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- Convenor:
-
Clothilde Sabre
(Hokkaido University)
Send message to Convenor
- Stream:
- Urban, Regional and Environmental Studies
- Location:
- Torre B, Piso 3, T16
- Sessions:
- Friday 1 September, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
This panel aims to question how Japanese inbound tourism actors perceive and integrate the experiences and the representations of foreign visitors and how it influence local development of the sites. Three cases will be presented and discussed, with an interdisciplinary perspective.
Long Abstract:
For a long time, Japan has been known for its unbalanced rate between inbound and outbound tourism, sending a lot of travellers abroad but welcoming few foreign tourists. However, in the current globalized context, many efforts have been made to improve this point, with official promotional campaigns and regular updates of tourism policies, and in recent years the number of foreign visitors in Japan has significantly increased (about 10 million a year now). But this recent development is not homogeneous and we need to consider its variations to understand how foreign tourists influence Japanese inbound tourism. Among others, questions like the following may be raised: how to fill the expectations of foreign tourists in order to attract them ? What are the representations carried by foreign visitors ? How to deal with the so-called 'cultural gap ? How tourism policies integrate foreign tourists experience, perceptions and representations of Japan, and consequently, how foreign tourists influence Japanese tourism sectors ?
This current context provides pertinent cases to observe and study the development of inbound tourism as an interactive process between local/national actors and foreign visitors. This panel aims to question this connection, with a specific focus on the influence of foreign visitors' images of Japan and the tourism policies and initiatives, leading to the development of specific sites, promoting specific images and cultural identity. Interdisciplinary approach will be emphasized, as the three participants are coming from different but complementary fields (history, geography and cultural anthropology).
Three examples will be introduced, presenting various case studies. Richi Endo, historian, will discuss about the forms of tourist experiences and images in Japanese international tourism through the example of American soldiers and their influence on tourism industry in the Japanese occupation period. Mike Perez, geographer, will talk about the processes by which Okinawan tourism was developed as an attractive destination for international tourist and as a multicultural country. Clothilde Sabre, cultural anthropologist, will compare Akihabara (Tokyo) and Hokkaido as tourist destination, in order to question the influence of media contents on tourism careers of foreign travelers in Japan.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 1 September, 2017, -Riichi Endo (Hokkaido University)
Paper short abstract:
This presentation will discuss about forms of tourist experiences and images in Japanese international tourism by picking up cases about travels carried out by American soldiers and Japanese tourist industries which planned tours for them in the Japanese occupation period.
Paper long abstract:
The purpose of this presentation is to historically examine how tourist experiences and images of international tourism in Japan are formed by picking up cases about travels carried out by American soldiers and Japanese tourist industries which planned tours for them in the Japanese occupation period. I focus on a continuity moment of the tourism throughout Japanese modern era and adopt a concept of "tourist gaze" by revisiting from Foucault's theory of "bio-power".
In modern Japanese context, as "tourism(kan-kou)" meant to guide foreigners from the 1880's to the 1950's, a period between before the high economic growth and after the collapse of economic bubble has continuity in geo-politics of Japanese international tourism.
Japan was occupied by GHQ/SCAP from 1945 to 1952, who was mainly American army. US soldiers stayed in Japan carried out sightseeing after their businesses or weekends. Families of US soldiers also experienced various encounters with Japanese society and tourists could come to Japan after 1947. Moreover Japanese tourism industries spontaneously undertook tasks to guide them. Although an influence of the power of GHQ and soldiers to Japanese society was conventionally thought to be violent and direct one, we can consider about the power rather as Foucault's "bio-power" from the viewpoint of tourism. That is, the experience of the occupation period effected to make Japanese society become a subject of "host".
In this research, based on the hypothesis, I will reconsider "the tourist's gaze" advocated by John Urry from a viewpoint of Foucault's "bio-power". Then we will investigate what was orientalism nature of "American tourist gaze" of that time, how it directed to Japanese society, how it was internalized and practiced by Japanese tourist industries. We will pick up experiences and discourses and practices about tourism by U.S. soldiers and their families, discourse about American tourists in Japanese tourism industries and Japanese society. Therefore this study aims to historically think about how touristic experiences and images are formed in Japanese international tourism by the viewpoint of "American tourist gaze".
Mike Perez (University of Lyon 3)
Paper short abstract:
I will stress the processes by which Okinawan tourism was developed as a foreign destination in Japan. Then, I will argue about how the Okinawa Prefecture plays a major function in building the image of Japan as an attractive destination for international tourist and as a multicultural country.
Paper long abstract:
For local economy, international tourism not only means an exploitation of natural and cultural resources, but also the creation of new employments, an economic development and improved human relations throughout the world. Perceiving this phenomenon as a globalization's vector, geography analyze it in as a spatial system including tourist's flows, transport and accommodation facilities and touristic resources, as well as imaginative representations of the space and political measures. Inbound tourism remains a priority sector to develop for Japanese government since the economic bubble explosion, in a sense of improving the revenue's balance between inbound and outbound tourism, raising Japan in the top class rank of touristic (and economically developed) countries and revitalizing peripheral areas.
Considering these facts, my presentation would replace Okinawa, the most tourism-dependent prefecture of Japan, in this context of international tourism development measures in Japan. According to officials, inbound tourism not only would 1) put the particular cultural patterns of Okinawa to a sustainable use; 2) induce important economic externalities; and 3) integrate this peripheral archipelago in the Asian market. International tourism as a "peaceful activity" would then deny the "military image" of the American military bases and the territorial issue with China concerning the Senkaku islets. Through the analyze of the spatial system related to Okinawan tourism, all these points would be studied with the aim of establishing a perspective for international tourism in Japan and stressing the main issues which have to be resolved.
Clothilde Sabre (Hokkaido University)
Paper short abstract:
This presentation will compare Akihabara (Tokyo) and Hokkaido as tourist destinations, in order to question the influence of media contents on tourism careers of foreign travelers in Japan. The notion of 'contents tourism' will be introduce and question to understand tourism development in Japan.
Paper long abstract:
Since the launch of the cool Japan campaign in 2002, Japanese pop culture has been officially promoted internationally and considered as a way to attract foreign visitors. The campaign and the related policies have been analyzed and criticized but the appeal to some foreign visitors can't be denied and the field of media contents related tourism is now investigated through local cases studies (see Seaton, Yamamura 2015).
Taking the perspective of the anthropology of tourism, I will use this idea of contents tourism to question the way foreign visitors are attracted to Japan, develop an imaginary filled with contents related images, and select sites as tourist destination. The current trend in Japan to promote sites insisting on their connection to pop culture provides pertinent examples. Moreover, fieldwork focusing on Western tourists show that a large part of them repeat the stays and consequently enlarge and enrich their imaginary of Japan and its culture. As they repeat their trips, they also choose various sites that are not often included in the indispensable visited places for a first trip, like Hokkaido.
Questioning the role played by pop culture in that process is a way to understand how tourism imaginary and local promotion influences the 'career' (Becker 1963) of tourists in Japan. To do so, I will compare two sites: Akihabara (Tokyo) and the island of Hokkaido. Akihabara is famous for its connection with pop culture and, in the last ten years, it has become the showcase of cool Japan promotion. So it is quite a must-see for those who are interested in Japanese contents. On the opposite, Hokkaido is associated to beautiful landscape and gorgeous nature. However, lately the cool Hokkaido project has been launched to develop contents related promotion and we can raise the question of the influence of this campaign on foreign tourists' representations of the island. Using data from ethnographic fieldwork (observations, interviews, questionnaires), I will compare the tourist promotion and the visitors' reactions to these two different destinations, in order to analyze the influence and impact of contents tourism.