International Villa Operating Association has been established to issue a common members' card among the villas and to deal with reservations and the provision of information. This sys-tem is working very well and excellent administration means that guests have access to such information as vacant room availability. Thus if one villa is full, an alternative can be offered. It is often the case that guests have no preference as to where they stay in such a situation, a villa with a vacant room can be immediately recommended.
The performance of each villa is as shown on the next page. 1992 and 1993 saw many guests but numbers declined a little in 1994 and 1995. However, 1996 saw a slight rise in occupancy. The decline during 1994 and 1995 can be attributed to both the Great Hanshin Earthquake and the appreciation of the Yen. As to whether 7,000 is seen as a great or small figure, we make no comment, but hope it will rise in the near future.
Item 8 describes the economic effects of the International Villa. The effect on income and employment obviously has an indirect element and thus is difficult to evaluate, but in terms of revenue, 7,000 guests each paying \3,000 (including the membership fee) totals \21,000,000. This means an average income per village of \3,500,000. Additional income may arise where Okayama Prefectural Government commissions 10cal carpenters to repair a villa, and also where visitors to the villa use local stores to buy food, etc. But even if such income is added to that arising from lodging, the total is still only small.
Let's take an example of a village with an International Villa. The village has only 12 families. In two of these the head of the family is still working and is under 50 years old. The heads of the other ten families are 70 years or older. It is not for the International Exchange Department to judge whether an income of \3,500,000 has any kind of effect on the village, that is we will not discuss its economic merits, should there be any. The conditions, agreed with the local authorities under which each villa was established, were that its presence should promote international exchange, rather than the villas being of economic importance.
Next let us look at Yoshinaga-cho, a town with a population of more than 5,000. Here the establishment of Hattoji Villa got young members of the local community interested in international exchange. They involved the Mayor, went to Australia together with him and toured various local governments in the country, which eventually led to the signing of a sister city agreement. From then on, active mutual exchange programs have been carried out, in which local junior and senior high school students visit each other every year.
In the case of large cities, the partner city of a sister city agreement is usually also a large one. Naturally, because such an activity is a wonderful experience many people are interested in participating, so there are only a few opportunities for students to go abroad through mutual exchange programs. This is true in my case. I am from Okayama City and although the city made a sister city agreement with a number of foreign cities, I never got the chance to participate in such a program. However, when a small town participates in similar exchange programs, the chances for any one child become greater than for those in large cities. By that rationale, the smaller the community is, the greater the opportunities will be. The International Exchange Department expects the International Villa to enhance opportunities for such small communities, while truly entering into international exchanges and we assume it is fulfilling its role.
Here I would like to change my subject from the rather formal topic of community activity to a more casual one. You must be interested to know why, and from where, as many as 7,000 foreigners come to such inconvenient, rural places in Okayama. The following results came from noting the addresses of members on issuing them with membership cards. Of 1,928 foreigners surveyed when visiting the villa, 1,478, or approximately three quarters, were living in Japan and the remaining quarter live in foreign countries.
