ABSTRACT
Rural tourism in Japan has been increasing its significance toward Japanese tourism development as an urban playground for the interaction between urban dwellers and rural people known as green tourism. However, the promotion of green tourism pays less attention to international exchange concerning the inbound market. With the decline of farming productivity, the urban–rural linkage by the interaction between foreign tourists and Japanese farmers is an alternative approach for green tourism aiming to sustain rural villages. This chapter, therefore, examines how the international exchange in green tourism supports the sustainability of farming communities and reconceptualizes the promoting framework of Japanese green tourism. Based on the conceptual framework of green tourism emerged with tea tourism, the Thai–Japanese tea farmers exchange program has been reviewed to discuss its implication and extend a concept of Japanese green tourism. It can be assumed that the flow of foreign tourists visiting farming communities by international exchange has accelerated the viability of both the rural market and urban market. It is resulting from networks of education and business, which stimulates the transfer of not only people and products but also knowledge and experience. As a consequence, reconceptualizing Japanese green tourism which limits for domestic urban–rural interaction, can be extended into the concept of rural–urban–rural linkage. This notion is a collaborative framework between a rural community at the Tourist Generating Region and a farming village of the Tourist Destination Region, which is supported by urban associations such as local government, NPO or DMO.
