TokyoTomo Travel Guide

The second meeting of Sports Tourism Promotion Committee – an organization initiated by Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) and joined by members from related ministries, agencies, and institutions – took place on June 25 in a bid to conceive business models for promoting sports tourism. There are four working teams set up, each with a respective task of “planning of sports tours,” “improvement of ticketing procedures,” “internationalization of sport events and promotion of international exchange,” and “sports arenas modernization and community renovation.” Each team made a report at the meeting on how to proceed with substantiative experiments and problems involved therein for the promotion of sports tourism, and the members present had a heated discussion on the points raised by those teams. JTA will boil down the issues before the third meeting and implement them sometime between the end of July and September. It is going to make a budget request late August to endorse the programs agreed at the meeting.

The team working for “sports tour planning” proposed to make experiments and verification in two separate ways by dividing the sports genre into two: games to play and games to spectate. In case of games to spectate like baseball, football, and Judo, it suggests to attach an additional value to the tour. Take a baseball tour for instance. The enthusiastic baseball fans in Taiwan or any other part of Asia will be extremely pleased if they are afforded an opportunity to have their pictures taken with the star players after the game, or to make a background tour. In case of games to join like triathlon and cycling race, it suggests forming teams by country or by family for competition. In either case, those programs may be combined with local cuisine, or hands-on experience, or hot spring bathing in the tour. The working team says they will check on how much the participants will be satisfied with tour quality, games (watching or playing), ticket delivery, and accommodation, and see if these contents are viable in attracting repeat travelers and how they are modified for the better.

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