I agree with Mr. Hirono, that what's fundamental is for the residents to know their community well, develop an attachment to it, and take pride in it. As for Nagahama City, a verbal description of what we want the city to become would be： "Museum City Concept." If the city were as attractive as a museum, then just as there are curators in a museum, the residents would become knowledgeable about the city, and would be proud to enlighten visitors about their city; in fact we talk about an all-curator citizenry. I feel this is the most important point for tourism.
It's often been expressed that in a sense, urban development is community development. It's my feeling that what is important is the creation of a network where residents can share their dreams with one another. On these sorts of things, there's absolutely no rift in our city between government and the private sector.
○ Takasaki
I understand that the subtitle for today's discussion is "Are foreigners visiting your area?" but we must look at the term "foreigners." Not all foreign visitors are tourists; a large number of them are business travelers. Out of the 4.2 million or so foreign visitors to Japan last year, 1.71 million, or more than 40%, were here for reasons other than tourism. These people dine at our restaurants and stay in our hotels; therefore we should probably be considering them on a par with tourists. It's my understanding that this is why we are calling it the Visitors Industry.
Another point： targetting. In the past, domestic travel was done mostly by men. However, over the past 10 years or so, it is increasingly the women who have the say over where to travel. The present-day customer presents as many needs as there are individuals. If we are to truly stand in our customers' shoes, we must realize that genders differ, age groups differ, how they use their time differs. That's how differentiated it's becoming now. Right now that trend is still forming. But what I can say for now is, we must make much of women's opinions, and that's true in my industry too.
