Oga’s problem

Die schoene Halbinsel Oga ist nicht weit von der Akita International University entfernt. Da jeder Kurs zwei fieldtrips pro Semester anbieten darf, waren wir mit Tourism-Kurs auf Oga. Unser Kurs Ziel ist es Strategien fuer nachhaltigen Tourismus zu entwickeln. Ein grosses Problem dabei ist, dass die Interessensgruppen nicht wirklich miteinander reden und es viele unausgesprochene Regeln und Braeuche gibt. Vor allem die international students haben das Gefuehl, dass sie noch so gute Ideen praesentieren koennen, doch damit wirkungslos an starren Strukturen abprallen. Auch hatten wir das Gefuehl, dass die lokalen Vertreter unseren Fragen oft ausgewichen sind…

Ein seltsames Kuriosum in Oga sind zudem die taiwanesischen Touristen. Diese machen 80-90% aller Uebernachtungen im Jahr aus. Warum ausgerechnet Taiwanesen Oga so attraktiv finden weiss niemand so genau.

Findings to promote Oga tourism 02. Oktober 2019

Of all following ideas the local people should be involved. One possible way would be through an annual meeting where people can present ideas and afterwards vote for or against them.

The most important factor for promoting something is information. The easiest way is social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube…).

Before their presentation the two speakers gave us a bag with many flyers which are for promoting Oga tourism. One third of them were useful and contained: the activity, a map/location, the time and the price. The local government or private stakeholders could ask JREast to put multilingual flyers with QR-codes into some Shinkansen and/or other trains to get attention. Seeing as Oga’s tourist population are from China/ Taiwan leaving more promotion in those languages would be valuable. Promoting in Japanese, Chinese and English would be a first step to help to bring more tourism.

• The hotel manager wants to attract individual and diverging tourist. One idea we thought of was building a campsite not far from the sea. It should be connected with public transportation services and a convenience-store should not be so far away either. There is already a camping site[1] however, it is hard to get information, because there is no cost overview and the contact information is only in Japanese. The campsite could be a good alternative to the expensive hotels.

• Oga is lacking of tourists in summer. A potential exciting idea for tourist could be to build a Tokyo Tower model in front of Godzilla rock to make the rock even more famous. Moreover, there could be open air Godzilla-movie-cinema offered in English with Japanese subtitles next to the Godzilla-rock.

Example picture:

• Namahage-dinner-cruise

It is semi-formal with relaxing (traditional) music including a Namahage performance. Having dinner on a boat is very famous in the United States and in Europe. It takes around 3 hours. Local but also vegetarian food should be served!

• YOga = doing yoga at a nice spot in Oga.

A final idea but I do not know if it is feasible is something like a Namahage Trademark or Copyright. People outside of Oga would have to pay a small fee if they do Namahage for commercial usage. So it stays famous but exclusive to Oga and would also satisfy local community who wants to preserve Namahage tradition.

---

[1] https://www.ogata.or.jp/sightseeing/park.html 30.09.2019.