Key figures and urgent issues in attracting inbound tourists to Tanabe City

When Minetoshi visits Tanabe City in Wakayama for research, there is one area where the people always greet her with a friendly “Welcome back!”— Hongucho (formerly Hongu Town). Located in the central part of the Kii Peninsula, most of the district is covered by forests. It is thought to have a place of nature worship since prehistoric times, and in the Heian period, it became a destination for the Kumano Pilgrimage by high nobility, including the emperors Go-Shirakawa and Go-Toba.

Kumano Hongu Taisha and the Nakahechi, one of the Kumano Pilgrimage Routes, are also components of the "Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range" cultural heritage site that was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2004. The area is also considered one of the most historic tourist destinations in Japan as the home of Kumano Hongu Onsen Village, comprised of Kawayu Onsen, Wataze Onsen, and Yunomine Onsen, the last of which is known for its therapeutic hot spring waters. In recent years, the number of foreign tourists has been increasing, especially from Europe, the United States, and Australia.

Tanabe City in Wakayama, which includes Hongu Town, has become a pioneering model for attracting inbound tourists. The city was formed in 2005 through a merger of several municipalities. It has been engaging in tourism promotion with a global perspective, and in 2014, it signed a tourism exchange agreement with the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela. Since the city is one of the holy places for Christianity, and like Tanabe City, its World Heritage site includes a pilgrimage route, both cities are conducting mutually linked tourism exchange programs. This "Dual Pilgrim" has been successful, attracting many tourists from Europe, the U.S., Australia, and other foreign countries to visit.

The Tanabe City Kumano Tourism Bureau, established in the year after the municipal merger, has been instrumental in the city's efforts to attract inbound visitors. Today, the city is attracting attention from tourism destination management organization (DMOs) nationwide. In 2023, it was selected as a "Pioneering DMO (Type A)" by the Japan Tourism Agency for a project aimed at forming a world-class DMO; however, the activities of the Kumano Hongu Tourist Association in Hongu Town, one of inbound tourist destinations, should not be overlooked. “When I first visited Hongu Town in 2010, the number of foreign visitors was about 1,600, but by 2019, the number had grown to more than 30,000. During this time, I saw up close the struggles of the tourism association and community members. As in the case of many other rural towns in Japan, the population in Hongu Town is declining significantly and the aging rate is over 50%. Accordingly, the lack of local leaders is an urgent issue,” notes Minetoshi.

Encounters with people involved in the protection of World Cultural Heritage sites and the promotion of tourism

Minetoshi first visited Hongu Town in 2010 when she was a post-doctoral researcher at Ritsumeikan University after getting acquainted with the director of the Wakayama Prefecture World Heritage Center (Wakayama Prefecture Board of Education). She was initially invited to be a commentator at a conference where the center director was scheduled to speak by way of a connection she made researching the World Heritage Convention during her undergraduate and master's programs. “The topic of my research at the time was balancing the protection of World Cultural Heritage and the promotion of tourism. Since the center director was a specialist in cultural property preservation, I was prepared for him to speak negatively about the promotion of tourism that makes use of cultural properties. However, his approach was based on the premise that the protection and utilization of the World Cultural Heritage should circulate within a region. This piqued my interest in the initiatives of Hongu Town, where the center is located, and I visited there just a week after the meeting,” recalls Minetoshi.

The Kumano Hongu Heritage Center in Tanabe City is the facility that houses the Wakayama Prefecture World Heritage Center, and the Kumano Hongu Tourist Association is next door on the same floor. “On my first visit, I met the directors of both centers and the deputy director of the Tanabe City Tourism Association (Hongu Office), all of whom were involved in World Cultural Heritage protection and tourism promotion, and I learned a lot about the region from them,” says Minetoshi. For the 14 years since then, Minetoshi has continued to visit Hongu Town, during which time she has met various people, including those involved with Kumano Hongu Taisha, the Youth Association of Shrine Parishioners, the Kumano Hongu Okami Association, the Kumano Hongu Storyteller Association, the Hongu Town Tea Production Cooperative, the Fushiogami District Women's Association, and the Mikumano Agricultural Cooperative. “Through various encounters with so many people, I was able to reaffirm that there are people who call this region home and that the areas surrounding the World Heritage sites and the historical tourist attractions are shaped by the daily lives of these people,” says Minetoshi.

Using tourism education to cultivate a mindset of continued involvement in the community after high school graduation

Since 2018, Minetoshi has been involved in the first-year Period for Integrated Learning through Inquiry classes at Wakayama Prefectural Tanabe High School, where she works with high school teachers to help them put tourism education into practice.

This came about after a reunion in 2017 with a high school teacher who had been seconded to the Wakayama Prefecture World Heritage Center. “We both recognized the problem of an increasing number of young people leaving Tanabe City without knowing much about it. That’s when we decided to try implementing tourism education during the Period for Integrated Learning through Inquiry,” explains Minetoshi. When we hear the phrase "tourism education," we tend to get an image of tourism business education geared to people seeking employment in hotels, travel agencies, and the like, but Minetoshi says that it also incorporates an aspect of community education using tourism as a learning material. “At the high school, we decided to have the students create a study tour plan. We have them read materials and conduct interviews to research the region,” says Minetoshi. In other words, this affords the students with an opportunity to learn about local attractions and issues. Minetoshi says the aim is to cultivate a mindset of continued involvement in the community after high school graduation.

“Although tourism education is still in its infancy, I believe that it can lead to the nurture of leaders depending on the extent of local cooperation and the program content,” affirms Minetoshi, who stresses the important role that local governments (municipalities) play in this process. She continues: “In recent years, municipalities have become increasingly involved in the administrative support for and classroom operations of prefectural high schools. Therefore, in order to reflect this trend in tourism education in Tanabe City, I have been visiting high schools selected by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology for its ‘Project to Promote High School Education Reforms in Collaboration with Local Communities’ to investigate the role of municipalities and the process of building local partnerships, and I am conducting research so that this can be applied to the field of tourism education.”

In 2024, the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range celebrates the 20th anniversary of its inscription on the World Heritage List. Meanwhile, the number of residents in the surrounding area continues to decline. Minetoshi ended the interview by expressing her ambition to implement tourism education by engaging in collaboration and co-creation with the local people she has met.