Originally Posted by
txflyer77
Exactly. Yes, first-time travelers should do a little research beforehand (don't blindly grab a cab at NRT, take your shoes off at temples, know the 止 symbol on toilets) but it's not like we're talking about Vietnam.
You raise a good point.
I frankly think it should be more about what the government needs to do for its residents to accept increased tourism....
but we should see how that plays out in 4 years when LOTS of people will arrive for the olympics...unless they can not find any hotels to stay in... ;-) at least tokyo has a decent amount of those.
Originally Posted by
AlwaysAisle
I think this forum is scaring a lot people away from Japan.
This is the reason you should not believe what you read on an Internet!
This is my view, I do not think Japanese government should get involved in tourism industry. I think let free market demand and supply lead the direction of tourism industry in Japan, rather than Japanese government getting involved. It is usually not a good idea for a government to get involved in something which should be left in private industry. See, we let Japanese government decide where Tokyo should have an international airport, and then we got Narita. If you have a choice, would you rather fly in and out of Haneda or Narita?
I do think people who have very strong negative opinions about tourism industry in Japan, then let the wallet do the talk.
sorry, but the trillion or so of tourism $$ spent annually in one of the world's largest industries (tourism) would indicate that any countries government that ignores tourism does to its detriment....so at least the Japanese government is recognizing the value of the same....
but hey, don't read the internets as you note...read here.
http://cf.cdn.unwto.org/sites/all/fi...ights16_en.pdf
pretty big numbers eh!
[fixed my typo]