Akio Okawara

Executive Director
Sumitomo Shoji Research Institute, Inc.

The heat in Tokyo has been intense and prolonged, leaving me feeling enervated, and I am impatiently awaiting my summer vacation. On the plus side, the hot summer weather around the country has given a boost to sales of seasonal goods, and leisure destinations are apparently recording high numbers of visitors. But the high price of gasoline is making people choose closer and less expensive spots and plan shorter trips. This is part of the impact of the global economic slowdown and the rise of inflation, which have been causing various shifts in consumer behavior, including summer vacation spending.

Tourism has been identified as an industry that can help revive lagging regional economies at a time when Japan's population has started to decline. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, the total number of tourists who visited foreign countries in 2006 came to 842 million, and the total of countries' income from international travel in 2005 was $680 billion. Clearly this is a big business.

The Japanese government has recently been focusing attention on international tourism. In January 2007 a new basic law aiming to develop Japan as a "tourism-based country" went into effect, and in June last year the cabinet approved a basic plan for implementation of measures to promote tourism. The government's basic plan has set a target of attracting 10 million foreign visitors to Japan in 2010 and having 20 million Japanese visit other countries that year.

The numbers of foreign visitors have been rising steadily. The figure for 2007 was 8.35 million, up 13.8% from the previous year, and the target of 10 million seems to be within reach. But the target of 20 million for Japanese going abroad may be hard to achieve. Last year the figure was 17.29 million, down 1.4%, and the number is continuing to decline, reflecting the weakening of consumer sentiment, the imposition of fuel surcharges, and the decline of the yen against some other currencies; in addition to such economic factors, the Japan National Tourist Organization cites the lack of enthusiasm for foreign travel among young people. In a recent survey of attitudes toward foreign travel, many males in their twenties declared that they were not particularly interested in overseas travel as a way of spending their free time, and both men and women in their twenties cited strong concerns about terrorism, war, infectious diseases, and other health risks as reasons for refraining from trips abroad.

These negative sentiments may reflect the experiences of this generation, whose members grew up in the "lost decade" following the bursting of Japan's bubble economy at the beginning of the 1990s. But we are in an age of globalization, and it is becoming increasingly important for people to turn their eyes outward and get to know the rest of the world. If, for whatever reason, Japan's young people are turning their gazes inward, this is a cause of grave concern. Each new generation of young people should venture forth and look around the world, full of curiosity and a sense of adventure.