As Japan Uses Bloggers For Tourism Bump, Numbers Show Korea and China are Key

A Kyodo report today gives a brief update on the Japan Foreign Ministry’s invitation to overseas bloggers to come see the parts of the country affected by the earthquake and tsunami last year. Of course the hope is that these bloggers will spread a little good news and reassurance about the country so as to help the tourist industry rebound after a very tough 2011.

One of the writers mentioned in the report is Louisa Liu Chu, who (from what I gather) is a food blogger for WBEZ Chicago [1]. Yesterday she did an interview on WBEZ where she discusses her trip and the many things she learned from visiting areas hit by the disaster like Kesennuma and Sendai. Her interview is pretty informative, even for someone like myself who reads news about Japan and the disaster on a regular basis, so I encourage you to give it a listen.

The Kyodo report says that the Ministry intends to bring 10 such individuals, and that it has set aside 21.5 million yen ($274,000) for the initiative. Of course the big question is whether or not that investment will pay off for Japan in the end, in terms of benefits to the tourism industry. If we look at recent statistics from the Japan National Tourism Organization [2], you can see how hard the disaster hit Japan’s tourism industry compared to the previous year. But looking at the breakdown of countries (see lower chart), it’s clear that the Ministry should look bring in bloggers from South Korea and Greater China, if indeed it is to bring in anyone at all.

*note the brown entry on the far right is 'other'

The tourist numbers for the second half of 2011 show a great improvement since early summer, so things have been getting better regardless. I think the main question that people have about this initiative is whether or not the money could be better spent on rebuilding.