A report on issues and factors that impact on policy development and the stakeholder organizations involved in the tourism industry: Japan case study


 


 


  


 


Table of Content


 


Introduction……………………………………………………………… page 3


Body of the report…………………………………………………………pages 4-18


Section One………………………………………………………………… pages 4-7


Section Two………………………………………………………………… pages 8-11


Section Three……………………………………………………………… pages 12-18


Conclusion………………………………………………………………….. pages 19-20


Recommendation……………………………………………………………pages 21-23


 


 


 


 


Introduction


 


          Accordingly, Japan’s policy development for their tourism industry will need to recognize further substance of tourism factors and avoid those issues at risk concerning stakeholder organizations specifically, the Japanese government and its affiliated partners and support agencies for promoting better tourism milieu for the good of the Japanese society. Tourism adhere composite sectors that encompass variety of policy making related for example to tourism travel and its accommodation achieving the ideal economic capital as there plays vital role in regional revitalization. Thus, Japan’s regions can possibly be revitalized through policy execution and resolving issues thus, presenting unique features to visitors as well as provide Japanese residents with incentive to develop pleasing communities that the people can be proud of.


 


 


 


 


Body of the report


 


Section One


            There is the potential for such Japanese stakeholder management as executed by such organizations that surrounds the concept of ideology and have such tourism policy implications within the stakeholder society. There are then evidences concerning Japan’s tourism planning in lieu of providing perspectives the value of the stakeholder groups and its approach in helping to keep and maintain enough balance and effectiveness among Japan’s tourism activities and its environment as well as social issues, challenges and policy development concerns (1987 and 1995). Thus, the ideal role of tourism relations is duly critical in showing casual relationships with regards to the tourism development issues of having justifiable assessment of its policies in due factors and impact underlying such stakeholder organizations for ample marketing management of Japanese tourism processes.


 


 


 


          When new Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Japan Tourism Department of the new ministry’s Policy Bureau should be given enhanced coordination functions so that tourism policies can be developed laterally across the various ministries. Also, consideration should be given to the appointment of a special tourism advisor reporting directly to the prime minister. Aside, the integrated cooperation among industry as well as government departments and stakeholder organizations is essential to achieve best shape of tourism in Japan (1998). Meanwhile, tourism industry and Japan government should encourage greater participation by nonprofit organizations and similar groups engaged in community development. Efforts should also be made to strengthen cooperation and coordination based on clearly defined roles for central and regional governments and tourism-related organizations.


 


 


 



THE CAUSAL MODEL DIAGRAM


 


 


            Ideally, Japan tourism has intended to be viewed as simple way of sight seeing through culture respect and appreciation and that Japanese tourism has received less priority as compared to some areas of industrial activity in terms of improving industry environment that involve tourism policies and systems geared towards a stronger sense of the country’s tourism development. In Japan today, the tourism value is expected to become better growth industry for the years to come as there is amiable emphasis on leisure and the enjoyment of life among Japanese tourists and its visitors (1998). The causal model of the tourism policy has handed down creations of healthy Japanese communities as the tourism has allowed people to get away from daily life and have diverse worlds among other nations. Aside, Japan’s tourism will then, contribute to regional growth as well as global understanding as imperative because interacting with such organizations and people as well as participating in policy decision matters will help foster stakeholders’ fulfillment and solidarity of acquiring positive issues.


  


 


Section Two


          Amicably, stakeholder groups being a part of Japan’s tourism relating to central and regional government will need to work harder in attaining goals of universal tourism through developing hassle gratis society that require several policy improvements like for instance, policy provision for having extra elevators and better use of pictorial signs in making such tourism ways negotiable for the physically/mentally disabled people and offer many options in order to suit interests of the people in general.


Japan will need to encourage sustainable tourism


          The issue pointing to sustainable tourism, as upon promotion of tourism, it is vital that we avoid hasty destruction of the natural environment and the creation of commercially oriented resorts, and that we focus instead on the preservation of the natural environment and historical heritages. This is what is meant by sustainable tourism. This can make an important contribution in areas ranging from the promotion of human interaction between urban dwellers and people in rural and fishing communities to the revitalization of mountain villages. However, the unlicensed provision of accommodations for large numbers of unspecified guests is breach of the Hotel Business Act in Japan, so it would be necessary to run such schemes on membership basis. While doing everything possible to conserve scenic areas and other resources, we also need to review all the regulations that affect green tourism.


 


 



 


THE CAUSAL MODEL DIAGRAM


 


          Moreover, Japan’s airports are still inadequate in terms of software aspects of their infrastructure, such as foreign language signage and information panels. So, imperative policy making steps should be taken to provide signs and other facilities that meet the needs of foreign tourists in tourist-related facilities, such as airports, seaports, and railway stations. Another priority is policy provision of information sought by foreign tourists in Japan as been achieved through the creation of portal Websites to provide integrated and comprehensive information in foreign languages about travel costs, access routes, local tourist resources, and the services and charges of hotels and inns throughout Japan. In addition, hotels and inns should improve their reception systems and establish interpretation and guidance services. The formalities required to obtain tourist visa for Japan should be made simpler and more transparent, and efforts should be made to improve the way in which tourists are welcomed to Japan, including the provision of hospitality. To attract tourists Japan tourism will be necessary to offer globally competitive travel products and in promoting travel to Japan, tourism-related programs and other material should be produced for broadcast in overseas countries. Furthermore, one effective approach would involve image enhancement strategy based on magazines as well as such publications targeted toward young women, who are a major market for travel.


Communication in policy implementation


          The Japanese tourism associations, which serve as bridge between government and tourism enterprises, play core role in tourism policy implementation. According to  ( 1997), the tourism industry associations play such important functions as bringing the majority of the members of the sector, acting as collectors of information and communicators with members and government and facilitate tourism policy implementation.


Managing the stakeholder vision


          Japan will need to consider expert support and to manage different objectives that come into conflict ( 1996). Conflict could be based on many underlying issues, for example, economic competition for scarce natural resources and or conflict between contrasting societal objectives like economic versus environmental use and economic versus social use of natural resources. Similarly, differences between underlying value systems such as different religious beliefs about social issues are difficult if not impossible to reconcile for governments.


 


 


Section Three


            Japan can possibly hope that tourism will become the starting point for certain innovative approach to regional development in the region and will then lead to fresh phase of national revitalization based on diverse emergence and actually wealthy regional societies that is on contact between other regions and nations. The tourism industry has been drawing much more attention from various governments, industries and the general public as well. Therefore, the real and potential tourism demand outside relies not only on the social and economic development of the tourist generating countries, on the entire world political and economic situation, but also on the political and economic relationship between the tourist generating and receiving countries. Presently, world tourism does not enjoy rapid growth since the impact of economic crises in the western countries has not yet completely vanished, nor has that of the financial crisis in Asian countries.


 


 


          Today, Japan can pay great attention to the development of international tourism, seeing it as an important way to earn tourist dollars and improve the international balance of payments. Nowadays, tourism competition is not competition among the tourist enterprise but more importantly, the competition of national power among destination countries. The tourism development of Japan may directly relate to the potential of international market demand and availability of domestic supply. Thus, the practices of various countries in their tourism development prove that government policies toward tourism are the key to its tourism development. Truly, it is essential for Japan to set up or regulate its policies and strategies for the development of international tourism in line with the general goal of national social and economic development. To open up the international tourism market, two important things should be done well. One is to know clearly the market demand and to send information in time to the target markets.


  


 


          Japan policy implementation holds the key of the whole tourism policy making process as such, poor execution of policy mean that there is, wastage of resources, time and expertise spent in formulating policy. As a result, not only the process of solving a public problem will be delayed, the standing and faith of government and public authorities involved will be lost (1997). No matter how tourism policy is formulated in the government structure, it will finally be implemented in enterprises. Tourism enterprises play significant role in implementation in terms of information exchange and cooperation. Thus, it is of value and interest to study how tourism policy is implemented in tourism enterprises. A clear understanding of tourism policy implementation can not only improve Japanese government’s tourism policy making process, but also enhance the theoretical understanding of the political dimensions of tourism including tourism politics and tourism policy-making process.


 


 


          However, nor can implementation simply and reliably be distinguished from policy formulation, as implementation of one policy decision almost always brings new problems into the agenda. Therefore, policy-making process is an interactive process without the beginning and end (1980, 1993, 2000). Thus, tourism policy implementation for Japan can be the extension of policy formulation. There is no universal accepted definition for policy, tourism policy implying the term that whatever Japan government chooses to do or not to do with respect to its tourism industry (1995). Since then, certain set of tourism policies and regulations has been formulated to promote the development of tourism as an economic industry. Generally speaking, Japanese tourism policies and regulations have covered almost all aspects of the tourism industry, including investment, start-up and operation of the tourism business, competition, consumer protection and qualification of tourism employees respectively.



 



THE CAUSAL MODEL DIAGRAM


  


          Henceforth, deciding how to engage with stakeholders is central to the activities of every government, although different political allegiances like, Japan’s Liberal Party may produce variations in how stakeholders are perceived, including which stakeholders are seen as important, versus those that are perceived as ample risk. Furthermore, the government is not amorphous entities, comprising of many organizations that vary in priorities and thus, compete with private industry relating to the identity of stakeholder importance in determining policy issues and such factors. The nature of tourism policy means that important but held views may not be embraced due to more powerful and influential stakeholders seeking to maintain status quo (2004). A core challenge for Japan tourism is the development of methods that effectively involve diverse stakeholder groups in policy processes, while avoiding unreasonable delays and unbalanced influence of unrepresentative groups and invested interests ( 2004).


 


 


 


 


          In so doing, Japan will need to ensure that individuals engaged in policy development processes are truly representative of stakeholder groups and that social excluded groups are represented adequately (2003). However, in practice, current trends towards private sector management practices in government are resulting in public policies that emphasize competition and contestability (1999; 2001; 1999), which would appear to be creating increased social disadvantage in some stakeholder groups. Thus, within complex policy issues, Japan will be required to develop techniques that effectively transfer tacit knowledge and understandings (2002). Effective development seems essential because people often do not articulate values and or understand it well (2000). Also, the policy development will be developing specific practices for engaging with particular cultural groups, such as indigenous people. While stakeholder groups’ potential to cooperate on policy issues may be based on the alignment of values, as there argue that tourism issues relating to stakeholder capacity in policy making participation may amicably govern sustainable potential of Japan’s economic activities as well as tourism programs.


 


         


Conclusion


          Moreover, Japan intends to attract 10 million foreign tourists to visit Japan by the year 2010 and in order to achieve the goal, ‘Visit Japan Campaign’, which is joint effort with local governments and the private sector, started in the fiscal year of 2003 along with “Yōkoso! JAPAN”, as the slogan. For instance, Prime Minister Koizumi and the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation appeared in video films and invited people of the regions to visit Japan. Japanese tourism has such ripple effect on many industries and contributes to regional development. The global exchange through tourism will then contribute to world peace and visits by tourists will lead to renewed interest and pride in regional communities.


          The Tourism Exchange Space Model Projects and the Tourism Plus Strategy are programs that help create local communities with their own characteristics that attract tourist as the programs are blended with those for special zones for structural reform and urban and local renewal. The government started urban and local development projects on the basis of the three laws on landscape and greenery conservation enacted during the year 2004.  For example, the City of Kobe newly appointed Director-General for Tourism, who should oversee all aspects of tourism on cross-functional basis. The Hirado City in Nagasaki Prefecture has set up four-language information signs for the convenience of foreign tourists, as such tourism promotion efforts truly spreading in Japan.


          Therefore, tourism policy provision can be targeted at various projects as carried out to meet people’s needs for leisure and to encourage them to go on long holiday travels. The enhancing the attractiveness of Japan and local regions It is also important to create conditions for receiving Japanese and foreign tourists. The Japan government is making efforts to develop tourism exchange spaces in which tourists can interact with local residents in addition to seeing sights. The Japan government should devote their energies to the development of tourism infrastructure, preservation of cultural and natural sites and improvement of recreation facilities.  


 


Recommendation


          There appears to be particularly evident in complex public policy issues, where perhaps only specialized groups of stakeholders, such as academics and professional bodies, have adequate capacity to participate effectively, whereas large proportions of the general community are excluded from complex aspects of the policy debate. Japan government could develop knowledge strategies such as seeking to win support for Japan’s policy improvements. While enhanced stakeholder participation through conference can improve the quality and legitimacy of decisions, tourism sectors have to ensure that tourism levels have reached to local, regional and national categories from the ideal stakeholder groups (2004).  Furthermore, successful execution need to be ahead of Japan’s tourism policy debate in the community as well as to effectively manage emerging policy issues (1996). The Japanese government may seek to obtain advice on emerging issues through tourism services or to seek the utilization of stakeholder value through such community based principles (2004).


 




 


 


          The rapid growth of tourism can lead to number of problems that challenge the effectiveness and efficiency of governments in policy-making, planning and managing sustainable tourism development. Effectiveness and efficiency in this area also depend on the role of the private sector and the scope for private-public sector cooperation. There is need for a clear mandate from the government to facilitate appropriate roles for the various stakeholders. There is then the need for integrating and coordinating tourism policy-making and planning with full range of Japan’s government agencies, such as involved in infrastructure as well as immigration and social development. The tourism policy issues serve as the parameters for the present draft plan of action. Indicated below are some of the major policy issues which need attention. One of the imperative issues has been how to attract greater tourists’ participation and the development of partnership between the public and private sectors of the region.


 


 


 


 


 


 


 



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