Monkey Park Trailhead
今朝の信濃毎日新聞にも載っていましたが、私がＮＩｎＪＡプロジェクトというグループと一緒に海外から長野地方に来る観光客にアンケートを実施しています。夏は清泉女学院の英語の生徒達が善光寺で、冬は我々ボランティアーのメンバー、自ら地獄谷野猿公苑で聞き取り調査を行っています。その間、数十件の宿泊施設にもアンケートをやってもらっています。
今日はＮＩｎＪＡの仲間６人で野猿公苑で聞き取り調査をチャレンジしました。とにかく、一番びっくりしたのは「９０％が東京からの日帰り」噂の証拠があまりなかった事と、「旅館」さえ知らないオーストラリアのスキー客がいた事。
野猿公苑は不思議な存在です。実は、聞き取り調査のあいまいに私は山ノ内町に呼ばれて、業界や市民の方々に「欧米人の求めるおもてなし」の講演しました。その時に、地元の方に聞かれました： 沢山の外国人が見に来ていますが、お猿の魅力は何？ 地元にも不思議だそうです。
まあ、山之内町もそうだし、長野県全体もそう：お猿だけじゃないよ。その魅力はどうやって伝えるかとはこれからの議題。
As mentioned in this morning's Shinmai (Nagano Prefecture's main newspaper), the NInJA Project group I'm in is working on surveying foreign tourists coming to the area to see what makes them click. In the summer, we had English students from local Seisen women's college interview backpackers at Zenkoji, and for winter the other NInJA members and I decided to go to the Jigokudani Wild Monkey Park and interview foreign tourists there.
The most fascinating findings for me were that the rumor that 90% of the visitors were on day trips from Tokyo is probably not true, and that some of the Australian skiiers visiting from Hakuba don't even know what a ryokan is.
Jigokudani is a an interesting place. Actually, part of the reason for this timing was that the Yamanouchi Town invited me up to give a talk on what Western tourists look for in Japan. One of the locals asked me what exactly is so appealing about the snow monkeys. Even the locals don't get it.
Well, hopefully our survey will result in ways to make foreigners realize that there is more to Yamanouchi Town, more to Nagano Prefecture as a whole than just monkeys!
NInJAプロジェクトのＨＰはこちらClick here for the NInJA Project website.
The proverbial Snow Monkey
