ABSTRACT

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.

chapter 1|18 pages

Introduction

Tourism in Japan – from the past to the present

chapter 2|28 pages

Tourism research on Japan – overview of major trends

Japanese and English-language materials 1

chapter 6|17 pages

Mobilizing stoke

A genealogy of surf tourism development in Miyazaki, Japan 1

chapter 7|21 pages

Japan’s mountain tourism at a crossroads

Insights from the North Japan Alps 1

chapter 8|20 pages

International exchange in tea tourism

Reconceptualizing Japanese green tourism for sustainable farming communities

chapter 9|19 pages

Pilgrimage tourism in regional communities

The case of Tanabe City and Kumano Kodo

chapter 10|21 pages

Confronting difficult pasts

The case of ‘kamikaze’ tourism

chapter 12|15 pages

Debating sustainability in tourism development

Resilience, traditional knowledge and community: a post-disaster perspective 1

chapter 13|18 pages

International tourists in Japan

Their increasing numbers and vulnerability to natural hazards

chapter |4 pages

Postscript