Japanese travelers stopping by a historic town or village in Japan while traveling account for 32%

The latest JTB Tourism Research & Consulting’ survey on tourism in historically-preserved towns or villages finds that people who have been there before accounted for 72% of the total. Although three-fourth of people are interested in visiting historic towns, the survey results show that young people tend to lack interest in that compared to senior people.

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Among people with the experiences, the ratio of visiting as a travel destination is 39.4%, and the ratio of stopping by while traveling 32.6%. Among 20s males and females, 40% answered, “no interest in visiting or no idea about a historic town.” 

High awareness and visit rates are found in World Heritage Shirakawago (awareness rate of 50.9%, visit rate of 23.4%) and Kawagoe, close to Tokyo (awareness rate of 37%, visit rate of 23%). Regarding hours spent in a town or a village, two-hours is the most with the ratio of 36.7%. While day trip in a town or a village accounts for 67.9%, overnight trip for just 12.6%. Overnight trip staying in a neighboring tourist town or a hot spring site account for 13.6%. 

The most-satisfied point is ‘harmony with nature (48.3%),’ followed by ‘moderate bustle (25.8%).’ The most-dissatisfied point is ‘short of restaurants or bars (8.7%).’ Among families with 12 years old or younger children, dissatisfactions are found in ‘short of local experiences.’ 

The survey results also illustrate that organizations managing the historically-preserved towns or villages pay attention to ‘to preserve historic resources,’ ‘involving in a local community’ and ‘responses to changes.’ They say that major challenging issues are ‘optimization of vacant houses’ and ‘improvement of transportation.’ 

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JTB Tourism Research & Consulting says, “It is important to meet bleisure (business + leisure) needs in accordance with young generations’ working styles, which may be effective to optimization of vacant houses.” 

In Japanese

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