観光庁長官 本保氏
松本大学は｢観光立県長野再興｣というシンポジウムをホストしました。村井知事の挨拶もあって、観光庁長官の本保芳明氏の基調講演があって、コーディネーターが私の憧れている松本大学の佐藤博康先生、パネリストの１人が軽井沢の星野リゾートの星野よしはる社長でした。聞きたい人達ばかり。実際に行ってみたら、期待した通りでした。特に本保さんの日本の観光及び人口の将来の話が耳に残りました。小泉総理が２００３に発言した２０１０年に訪日本外国人観光客旅行者を倍増の１千万人に｣が当時で驚く数字でしたが、２００８年は既に９１５万人台になる予想です。次の目標がもう決められてきている：２０２０年までに２千万人！２００７年に宿泊客のおよそ１４人に１人は外国人だったところがおよそ６人に１人と言う数字が出ました。以前にこのブログで報告したように、日本政府調査で旅館の２７％は外国人を受けたくないそうです。本保さんはその宿を｢ほっといていいです｣とはっきり言いました。おもてなせないところを無理やりにおもてなさせたら、中田半端になるだけだと。
まあ、亀清旅館では、日本人でも外国人でも火星人でも、おもてなしを提供しております！
Today I attended a tourism symposium in Matsumoto (Nagano Pref.) Yoshiaki Hompo, the 長官 of the newly created Japan Tourism Agency, was the guest speaker, and he commented on this issue of 27% of ryokans not wanting foreign guests (as mentioned in an earlier entry).
Hompo-san presented some impressive stats on Japan’s tourism and (declining) population trends. One important figure was how much tourist expenditure it would take to cover the economic loss of one resident: 24 Japanese tourists (76 if just day trippers) or just 5 tourists from overseas. The point is Japan’s economy needs “Inbound” tourists to keep the economy stable during its population loss. In 2003, ex-PM Koizumi declared the goal of 10 million foreign tourists per year by 2010. Seemed pretty ambitious with there only being 5,100,000 at the time, but ‘08 is on target for 9,150,000. (That target is now in danger due to the recent climb of the Japenese Yen.) As Koizumi’s goal will likely be achieved earlier than expected, the JTA is now considering a new goal of 20 million by 2010. That would mean 1 in every 6 宿泊者 (lodgers) would be a foreigner (compared with 1 in 14 in 2007).
Hompo-san then said he is often asked: “With that type of stat, are you just going to ignore the 27% of the ryokans that don’t want to accept foreigners?” You know what his reply was? “Yes, we are going to ignore them.” The reasoning was that the 1 in 6 won’t be spread evenly across all inns and hotels. The percentages will obviously be higher in Tokyo than the countryside. The inns in the 27% group tend to be in the countryside and tend to not want foreigner guests because they are not confident they can provide satisfactory service to them (c.f. Iegumo-san’s in-laws). Hompo-san indicated he would prefer to let such inns persist in their ignorance rather than forcing Inbounders on them, which would only create unpleasant experiences for both parties. As Japan’s population (and therefore their customer base) shrinks, then maybe the inns will wake up to the reality of needing to direct their omotenashi towards foreigners. Or maybe they’ll just keep on sleeping… (My editorializing, not his, but Hompo-san did say he would ほっとく the 27% in the hopes of avoiding them providing 忠太半端 service to foreign guests.)
