Japan to set up unified tourism authority
people.com.cn
The Japanese Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry decided on Tuesday to integrate its tourism- related divisions into a single authority in fiscal 2008 to help reinvigorate local areas by attracting foreign visitors.
The establishment of such a unified tourism authority has been expected by the parliament, the government and different industries. A basic tourism promotion law was enacted by the Diet in December.
Abe's Cabinet plans to make tourism a major industry and to increase the annual number of foreign visitors to 10 million by 2010. A basic plan on how to attain the goal will be adopted in a Cabinet meeting shortly, officials were quoted as telling.
The transport ministry's current tourism-related divisions are the Tourism Policy Division and five other divisions in the Policy Bureau. Ministry officials said that the integration will streamline and coordinate their works.
Tourism is a "industry of hope" for Japanese municipalities on their course of boosting economies. Many local self-governed bodies have been busy advertising their tourism resources overseas.
Official statistics showed that about 7.33 million foreign tourists visited Japan in 2006, mainly from China and South Korea. According to the independent International Tourism Promotion Institution, the prospective 10 million foreign visitors in 2010 will bring Japan an income of 6 trillion yen (about 48.8 billion U. S. dollars).
