Yanagida worked as a critic from the 1900s through the postwar era, and it is interesting that, to my knowledge, he wrote many articles concerning travel in the 1920s and 1930s. In those articles he wrote "Tabi was an unpleasant and laborious thing to do in the past and it is only recently that ryoko, a new type of travel for pleasure, has begun," and it was in saying this that I noticed he clearly distinguished the two words.
Judging from this, the period in question saw the beginning of travel for pleasure in Japan. It also coincided with the time when the Japan Tourist Bureau's income from commission surpassed that from membership fees for the first time. The Japan Tourist Bureau is the former name of the present Japan Travel Bureau, both of which are abbreviated to JTB. Up until then, the former JTB had mainly relied not on the commission they earned through arranging tickets and lodgings, but on the membership fees, and it had been engaged in public services rather than business. It is not clear why the proportion of these main incomes changed in this period, but it can be chiefly attributed to two causes: One is that the increase in the number of travelers during the period enabled JTB to operate by themselves as a travel agency; the other is that it changed its policy so as to gain greater income from commission.
Anyway, the facts are that in the 1920s and 1930s JTB's main income shifted from membership fees to commission and more people traveled than previously, both of which Kunio Yanagida realized following the field survey he conducted as an ethnologist. He researched and discovered for himself that the number of sightseeing travelers was increasing, whereas before the travelers he had met were mostly such people as peddlers and itinerant players .
Therefore, I would say that it was around 1927 that travel became popular among the Japanese people and it is at this time that the traditional word tabi came to have a different meaning from that of the new word, ryoko. Therefore, even after 60 years, the word tabi still gives a tougher, therefore more worthwhile impression of travel to Japanese than the word ryoko.
This is why I intend to use the word ryoko more often. Even today, the usages of these words are distinguished from one another. I took an example from the proverb "If you love your children, let them travel" before, but there are also expressions such as 'tabi-geinin,' 'tabi-yakusha,' 'mata-tabi-mono' and 'tabi-no-mono', all of which sound quite strange if the word ryoko is substituted for tabi. For example, if we say 'ryoko-geinin' instead of 'tabi-geinin,' meaning itinerant players, it will make no sense to us Japanese, and the same is true for other sayings and proverbs.
After all, tabi has been used since ancient times and naturally has a long history. On the other hand the word ryoko was invented later and has a modern feeling, as well as giving an impression of consumption and pleasure. In the case of tabi, people travel to their destination with a certain purpose, such as for selling goods or holding a haiku meeting as Japan's famous poet Basho did. While traveling, people would encounter both pleasure and hardship, and although they would hope for minimal troubles, were any encountered, they were endured for their character-building value.
On the contrary, the word ryoko suggests enjoyment, even before departure, in the planning of a trip, and more than anything else, the main pleasure is not so much in the arriving at the destination but in the getting there. Therefore, there has been a big difference in meaning between the two from the beginning. The purpose of tabi is in the activity at the final destination such as making money by trading, but ryoko is something more comprehensive, including encouraging enjoyment in our lives, as well as providing learning opportunities and cultural experiences.
Boarding novel transportation facilities or looking at something specific could be a single purpose for travel. When Japan's Shinkansen was opened, boarding the train itself was a tourist attraction, as is going to see the new large bridge built on the Inland Sea of Japan. In other words,
