長野市の私鉄「長野電鉄」がインバウンド仲間に「外国人目線で見る」調査を頼みました。交通機関の立場から見れば、外国人対応はきっと頭を悩ませる問題でしょう。なぜかと言うと、どんな対応策でもお金がかかるから。
予算の事も考えながら、私も長電の長野駅を尋ねました。正直って、長電の入口は駅の中で分かり辛いです。一緒にいた日本人の友達は最初に分からなかった。
日本人に分かりにくければ、当然に外国人にも難しい。
しかし、長電酸は是非、外国人・外国語対応して欲しいです。なぜなら、例で言えば、亀清旅館の外国人お客さんの７～８割は長野に来る目的が地獄谷の野猿公苑です。その大半は長電を使って、スノーモンキーを見に行く。
このごろは長電が成田エクスプレスの古い車両を購入して、「スノーモンキー」と言うネーミングで走らせている。
写真の様に、入口に車両のイラストと片仮名で電車の名前が大きく映っているが、両方共は外国人に通じない。ロマン字は小さくて、見落としやすい。
案としてはせっかく雪猿のテーマを生かしているならば、お猿のイラストがあれば皆がすぐ分かる。シールで作って、今の看板に張れば安く済むし。日本人も外国人もパッと見て、ぱっと分かる。つまり、ユニバーサルデザイン。
ちなみに、一番笑えたのは切符の販売記。「Ｅｎｇｌｉｓｈ」と言うボタンがあったけど、押したら駅名は漢字のまま。これじゃ意味がない?!
長電さん、インバウンドをしっかり頑張って下さい。
Nagano City's private railway "Nagano Dentetsu" requested some Inbound-related buddies of mine and I to assess their train line from a foreigner's perspective. To be honest, I wouldn't want to be in Nagaden's shoes. Making their system foreigner-friendly would be an expensive undertaking (new English signage, multilingual website, etc.), with no guarantee of increased revenue.
But I really hope Nagaden does make some improvements. The reason why is that a lot foreigners ride Nagaden to go see the snow monkeys at Jigokudani. (70-80% of Kamesei's guests come to Nagano to see the monkeys, and the majority of them ride Nagaden.)
The other day, I Nagaden's entrance and ticket gate at Nagano Station. The Japanese guy I was with had a hard time finding the entrance. If it's hard for a Japanese person, you can bet it would be difficult for a foreigner!
Nagaden recently acquired the old Narita Express cars, and renamed them "Snow Monkey". Nagaden's entrance has a huge sign featuring an illustration of the train cars and 'Snow Monkey' in Japanese katakana script, neither of which means anything to the typical foreigner. "NAGADEN" is written in English, but in text that is way too small.
My suggestion would be for Nagaden to make use of the 'Snow Monkey' naming and add an illustration of a monkey. A simple sticker added to the existing sign would suffice. And foreigners and Japanese people alike would immediately recognize the meaning.
That's 'universal design'!
By the way, one thing really made me laugh. The ticket machine had a button for English. But even with that, the station names still showed in Chinese characters. How would an English speaker know what ticket to buy???
I really hope Nagaden makes progress towards becoming more foreigner-friendly!
