TokyoTomo Travel Guide

Government Revitalization Unit on November 27 reviewed the budget request pertinent to the first-phase programs for 30 Million Foreign Visitors Project and the Tourism-based Regional Development Plan. The conclusion was that the budget for the former was slashed to a half while the latter was cut drastically to 20 percent, leaving a big portion of the request unapproved, following the case of Encouragement Plan for Holiday-taking and Holiday Diversion ruled on November 26. Many reviewers showed understanding for the importance of tourism, and some said, “Don’t consider we marginalized the importance of tourism just because we pared the budget. Rather, we take tourism industry as a vital one in the coming years. Our expectation is so great that we have to be serious about the way it is developed. That is what we want everyone to know.”

What the viewers brought to the attention was inadequacy of marketing and survey data on which policy-making should stand. They urged to reexamine the details of specific measures before starting off any aggressive policy. They maintained that, in case of promotion of foreign visitors to Japan, measures taken should be more specific and focused with regard to target markets and methods of promotion. There was a remark from someone that foreign visitors had been on the rise over the years without increasing the budget, which means the number of visitors would fluctuate depending more on the strength of macro economy than the amount of allocated budget.

For the initial-year activities in the first phase of 30 Million Foreign Visitor Project, budget request was 18.9 billion yen, of which 17.5 billion yen was to go for overseas promotion to accomplish the first-phase goal of 20 million visitor arrivals. However, four of 13 reviewers insisted shelving the request and nine demanded to downsize the budget. As to the amount to be curtailed, five members advised to cut it to a half and one member to a third; further, a 40 percent cut, a 75 percent cut, and a 90 percent cut were proposed by three different members.

With reference to Tourism-based Regional Development Plan, a budget of 3.2 billion yen had been requested (after having been modified from 10.8 billion yen in the revised budget as of October 15), but it met with turndown by four members, procrastination by two, and cutback by seven. The extents of cutback proposed were 50 percent by one member, 40 percent by one, 80 percent by four, and a substantial degree (not specified) by one. Here again, reviewers were skeptical about cost-benefit performance of the proposed programs. They also pointed out insufficient execution of budget allocated in the previous fiscal year.

Source: Travel Vision

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