lar region in an overseas country. Following this, as Ms. Uehara said, each community should put the question to themselves as to what resources they have in view of tourism and international exchange, although she expressed it "from the professional viewpoint." Taking a good example from the survey which the International Tourism Advisory Committee conducted amongst foreign tourists visiting Japan, in response to "Where do you want to visit next time?", the answer "I want to see real Japanese life" ranked fourth or fifth. I hope it is still the same. If we acknowledge that we have no need to dress up what we have, but rather promote it just as it is - our real life, lifestyle and industry - it could become the fundamental key for exchange, we will be self-confident and be able to discover in what ways our community can be marketed. This seems to be a significant point.
There is another factor to be considered together with this which is competition and cooperation, as presented by Mr. Shimizu and tackled by Mr. Ido. The resources owned by each community are rather few in number. Population, human and material resources, history, culture, etc. ; each one of these resources in the individual community is small when compared to cities, such as Paris, but it is not necessary to view this difference in size as an obstacle. The era has shifted from "economies of scale" to "economies of range," and then again to "economies of network." These ゛economies of scale" have a high economic worth. While they are complicated and a lot of effort will be required to form such networks, identifying what one community has and what another has, multiplying the overall effect, and commercializing these products will add new value to them. I would continue if time allowed it, but I have to go on to the next point now.
In order to realize the Welcome Plan 21, which includes the development of a Welcome Bureau I suggest the establishment of something like a ゛Local Tourism Exchange Council" or similar organization to develop an effective network, thus promoting the planning of an international tourism strategy in each community. Because tourism, in the era when it has become the key industry, is essential for the survival of the individual communities, they must combine their expertise, resources and efforts to ensure themselves a prosperous future.
In doing this, not partly subsidized or temporary planning, but a pilot program of tourism exchange should be tried, in which experts, like today's panelists, are assigned to the local communities where they serve as a think tank, to study and invent a tourism program tailored to the community. Another method is to work together within a community and then spread the success to other communities.
This so called Council must reveal the impacts and results of the project to the public regularly - this is also the case for the joint promotion mentioned above - and in doing so their attitude will eliminate the problem leading to the next phase of tourism exchange. And if the cooperative organization which continuously repeats the analyses, such as evaluation of the impacts and discovering of the problems, consists of not only local administrators but also representatives of the private sector, the APTEC and all the organizations, then sustainability in the community will become finer and more advanced.
Finally, I hope each one of you will do your best to discover and create sustainable tourism strategies in your own communities and experiment with them.
I have to apologize to you all for running over time. I would like to thank you, the participants, for your attention, and the speakers for their presentations. Thank you.
M.C. : Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking Professor Abe, the coordinator of this symposium, and the panelists. (Applause)
I am sorry that we have finished considerably behind schedule but I hope all of you have enjoyed today's symposium. I would like to bring the International Tourism Exchange Symposium to a close. Thank you very much.
