Bringing light to darkness

Visiting disasters sites can be educational and provides a much-needed lifeline for the affected communities, insist Japanese tour operators. Julian Ryall finds out how

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For a country that has suffered unfortunate catastrophes in recent years, disaster tourism is a territory that Japanese travel operators are still careful to foray into over concerns of sending out the wrong message.

“Dark tourism sounds very negative and there is a possibility that people will misunderstand and believe that the whole of Fukushima Prefecture is still dangerous and not worth visiting,” said Rin Onodera, of the Fukushima Prefecture Tourism Association.

“But that’s just not true,” she stressed. “Radiation levels in most areas in the prefecture are safe for people to live there.

“We are trying to promote ‘hope tourism’ and show visitors the efforts and 
progress being made by people who are working hard to ensure the region’s recovery.”

According to statistics from the tourism ministry, Fukushima was the 15th most-visited of Japan’s 47 prefectures in 2015, with at least 800,000 foreigners passing through.

Other trade players seek to cast disaster sites in a more upbeat light with the use of positive marketing terms.

“We prefer to promote tours to Fukushima Prefecture as ‘reconstruction tourism’ and help the local travel industry get back on its feet,” said Motohisa Tachikawa, a spokesman for JTB Corp. “Using the term ‘disaster tourism’ is totally different to what’s going on there right now.”

Pointing to the rebuilding efforts in Kyushu after the April 2016 earthquake, he added: “The best way our industry can help is to send more people there, get them to stay in local hotels, eat in local restaurants, and buy local goods and souvenirs.”

For now it seems that disaster tourism is getting more attention. In September 2015, the first issue of the Dark Tourism travel magazine was released in Japan, highlighting a leprosy sanatorium in Okayama Prefecture, World War II sites, parts of Fukushima Prefecture still seeing the after-effects of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

 

This article was first published in TTG Asia January 2017 issue. To read more, please view our digital edition or click here to subscribe.

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