Tourism in Kansai: Destinations, Systems, and Impact

This report explores the impact of tourism in Kansai, Japan, including popular destinations, systems, and suggested itineraries. It discusses the stakeholders and challenges faced by the industry, as well as potential and recommendations for improvement. The report also includes statistical data on the number of visitors and their means of transportation, as well as the contribution of suppliers and directors to the sector of tourism in Kansai.

Report of tourism in Kansai 1
Report of tourism in Kansai
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Report of tourism in Kansai in Japan
Introduction
This report will outline the impact of tourism in Kansai a city in Japan. It will also
discuss the systems and destinations in Kansai which tourist are interested in. These features
include markets, food, spiritual walks, culinary tourism. It will also discuss the number of
tourists who visit Kansai and the means they use to arrive and depart from the city. There also
suggested itineraries for those who visit Kansai. This includes visiting the heritage sites of the
Kumano Pilgrimage Trail, tracking on the bridge formed by gods, going to the three unique
Kansai cites which include Osaka and Nara (Dekle 1996, pg. 56). Also visiting the places with
the Yoshino cherry trees in Nara and Tokyo (Clancy, J., 2013).
This report will also discuss visiting of religious places such as shrines, temples and old
homes, visiting the appeal of Kobe where the east and west cultures meet. Visiting the Hilltop
Buddhist Cities at Mt. Koya-san and the Sacred World heritage. There also gourmet adventure
through Mie a town in Japan. It will also discuss the Kansai prefectures which are found in Mie,
Hyogo, Nara, Shiga, Kyoto, and Wakayama. In markets, it will highlight the impact of tourism
on investment and how market prices are affected by tourism.
The report will also have analyzed statistical data of the internal and foreign visitors in
Kansai city. Traditional tourism like visiting the hot springs will not be left out in this report
(Seaton and Yamamura, 2015 pg. 5). The sector of foods also will be discussed, for example, the
production of noodles and how consuming of foodstuffs by tourists affect agriculture in the
entire country. Religious foods will also be discussed in details. Spiritual or walking tourism will
also be outlined in this report and how it is conducted in Kansai. Pictorial information on the
destination and the effects it has on tourist will also be discussed in this report. Systems which

Report of tourism in Kansai 2
support tourism in Kansai will be listed and their effects too will be noted. The advantages of
having tourists in Kansai will be outlined and the disadvantages the same will be discussed. The
other issue in this report is how landscape or demographic changes affect tourism in Kansai.
Domestic one direction trip which is known as the Gourmet trip will be a matter of discussion in
this writing. This paper will also discuss why Kansai is becoming a flower of Japan. The relation
between the locals and tourists will be highlighted and the effect the tourists have on the local
communities in the places they visit. Tables and charts will be used to analyze data and some few
methodologies used to draw a conclusion.
Evidence of system approach
Research shows that the number of tourists who visited Japan in the year 2015 was
approximately 2.95 (Tseng & Huan, 2017 p. 184) and around 40% of this number visited Kansai
which amounted to 73.34 thousand visitors. This is a great promotion to the sector of tourism in
Japan. This number has been rising up since 2017 up to date, this is because several systems
have been built to deal with the quality of services given to tourists in Kansai (Padhil and
Purnomo, 2018). The table below shows the data of visits since the year 2015.
year Number of tourists in millions Increment in %
2015 2.95 original
2016 3.12 5
2017 3.74 20
2018 Data not analyzed pending
Although a large number of people amounting to approximately 24 million between 2015
and 2016 there were few who were interested in tourist attractions. This large of tourists also left

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Japan by the means of air transport from several airports in Japan. It is a spiritual experience to
visit Kansai because of several tourist destinations. These include scenic rivers, breathtaking
rocky costs, temples and shrines, centennial forests and majestic waterfalls. Those with short
visits always leave this area unsatisfied because all striking adjectives in the world can be found
in Kansai. The destinations are well grouped to make it easier for travelers to visit them. Nara
park in one of the destination, in this area more than 1200 wild beer wonder everywhere freely
without restriction (Chujo and Oghigian, 2006 p. 135). Some special crackers are sold to the
visitors to feed these beers.
The other destination found in Kansai is Arashiyama which is found in the outskirts of
Tokyo. While ending to Arashimaya you pass through the Hozu river and the Togetsukyo bridge
where people go to have a leisure walk. The mountain starts just after the bridge and it welcomes
you with you with a monkey park and beautiful few of the plant (EIJIOHT, 2012 p. 28).
Arashimaya also bost of the Bamboo Grove.
The other place to visit in Kansai is the Hashigui Iwa where are pointing rocks spreading
for about a kilometer giving a view of a bridge, this place is used by tourists to catch sunrise
because the sun rises from behind the rocks (WADA and MINAMIGAWA, 2013 p. 87). The
temple of Kiyomizudera is another interesting place for tourists, the design which was used to
build this temple is a funny approach because no nails were used (Keiji 1979, pp.388). The long
shopping street and the forest around it also attracts the tourists.
The shrine of Fujimi Inari is famous because of the tori gate marks which lead to the
main building. These gates have the names of those who donated them, and they are surrounded
by a forest that keep thoughts flowing in mind (Turnbull and Stephen, 2015). The other shrine

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which is a tourist destination is the shrine of Nachi Taicha which is along the routes of Kii
mountains in Japan. Against the shrine is 133 meters’ waterfall which leaves one speechless.
Returning tourist in Kansai uses the Kansai airport to leave the country. Here the charges
of leaving are very high. Around the airport are markets of traditional baskets, shoes, and foods.
The airport provides a market to the traders around it because these tourist roams in the market
when waiting for departure.
Stakeholders and their roles
A stakeholder is that person who is concerned in business, stakeholders also can be
defined as a party with interest in a company or organization and can either affect the company
or be affected by the company. They include creditors, employees, directors, suppliers, unions,
shareholders and the surrounding community (Barnett, 2018). The main two stakeholders in this
area are suppliers and directors. The table below shows the contribution they have towards the
sector of tourism in this area.
Stakeholder Contribution to the sector of tourism in Kansai
Suppliers
Suppliers serve the surrounding shops and market with goods which
they require to do their business
They provide agricultural produce for manufacturing foodstuffs such
as noodles.
They also supply to the tourists direct by selling to them the goods
and services.
Their effort helps much because all needs of the visitors are dealt
with and in the right manner.
Everything in the area depends on suppliers because if they will fail
to provide them the other plants which depend on them will fail too and the
sector of tourism will not improve in any way.

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Directors
These are people who offer direction help to the visitors in the area of
Kansai, they may be individual or companies.
Directors help visitors not to get stranded when they arrive at Kansai in
Japan.
They also offer transport to those who don’t have their vehicles.
The direct the tourist to the areas where they can get hotels and the
destinations in Kansai.
This helps out because the visitors will not waste time roaming looking for a
place or using mobile application for direction which is hard when you are in
a new place.
Market segmentation is a process of dividing a large market into small parts in which
these small parts have common needs, wants and get similar demands from customers. The
objective is to create a market which will offer the expected services to the customer in a quality
and easy way without straining. This segmentation can also be done in a company in order to
concentrate in areas which they are perfect at. Their four main strategies which are considered.
They include behavioral, demographic, geographical issues and psychographic issues (Liu &
Liao, 2018). Market segmentation is important to this destination because it makes it easy for
tourists to do shopping, it easy to specialize in one commodity when the market is well
segmented. Those people are good in a certain field will give a nice service to the visitors and
this will keep them coming. The segmentation bases used in Kansai is behavioral, demographic
and geographical. Most of these bases are used because the destinations in Kansai are more of
natural attractions. These include mountain and forests.

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Target markets can be defined as those people who are most likely to purchase good from
a certain market (Wilhelm, 2015). The people mostly targeted by the segmented market are the
tourists and the people in the area of the segment because the segments are based on behaviors
which include culture. So any business started should aim to sell to the visitors and the
surrounding locals.
An array of Experiences.
Experiences is that knowledge of doing different things in the perfect way because one
has been doing them for a long time. People of Kansai have two experiences; first, they have
experience in food preparation. They use agricultural products to make noodles which are highly
consumed by the visitors. This improves the agricultural sector because the market is available
for their products and at good prices. They also prepare religious food especially the Buddhist
prepare food from the shrine and people eat from there. The Kansai people have the experience
in making traditional baskets and also in decorating houses and fields. This gives a beautiful look
at the fields where tourist visit daily.
These two experiences are strategically important to the destinations of Kansai because
they attract the visitor who leads to the improvement of Kansai's economic sector. If the people
of Kansai had no enough experience in these two areas, then it would be hard for the tourists to
come in their area. In each area of business, experience is needed in order to give quality service
to the customers, this means that also the amount of money paid will increase leading to the
development of roads and other structure in the area of Kansai.
Experience always have a positive effect on the society because everyone earns enough
money from their experience and this promotes their standards of living from low to high. There
are many people in all segments of Kansai who offer services to the tourists going to this area.

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Experiences Location in the destination
region
Types of experiences
(natural, cultural, urban)
Food preparation Tokyo Urban and cultural
Decorating Osaka and Minami areas Cultural
Potential and challenges faced by Kansai
The number of tourists visiting this area increases in big percentage yearly. The World
Travel and Tourism Council said that Kansai contributed to Japan economic development.
Kansai possesses the potential to be a unique tourist destination. Local people come up with their
products and after earning money they can improve their standards of living (Okamoto, 2015 p.
15). Personal development by the building of shops, restaurants, carving shades and motels give
a lot of capital to private investors in Kansai.
The sector of transport has also developed, the roads reaching the tourist attraction
sceneries have been constructed well and this has made transportation in the city of Kansai and
the whole of Japan. Those companies which offer tourism services also offer employment to
local people to improve their level of living. More than 30% of Kansai population get employed
by the tourism sector. There are also challenges Kansai as a destination for tourists. These
include
 A high population of visitors such that tickets have to be booked two months earlier, this
discourages the tourists from visiting some tourist attraction area like the Ghibli Museum
(Dongyang and Hayashi, 2015 p. 40).
 Professionalization. The government of Kansai is not the best unit in the market of
tourism so failure to employ private sectors in the field make the sector unsuccessful.

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 Diversification. The problem of balancing the gender in all association meeting in Kansai
is another problem. Ladies should be consulted because half of the population of the tourists are
women (Shinohara, 2018 p. 68).
 Digitalization. The present market in Kansai is not digitalized hence the tourism sector
had been digital since 10 years ago. They should include things such as TripAdvisor and other
digital equipment for the sector of tourism (Ndou, 2011).
Recommendation
Introduction of digital equipment in the tourism sector, for easy movement Kansai
government should introduce applications such as TripAdvisor direction givers and it should
also introduce digital payment method to make it easy for the foreigners to pay for services. The
digital applications or system for the guide will offer good service and they will be easy to use
and they will burn the problem of language barrier. Introducing digital services will save time
for the visitors and the tourism companies too. Digital booking of tickets may make it easy for
those areas with a large number of visits because people don't need to travel in advance to book
for tickets. Paying for goods in the market with a digital way of payment will be than going to
change the money from banks which are so tedious.
The other recommendation is the resident recommendation, this will help to get good
tour guides and people with experience of how people live in the segment in hand. This creates
employment to the local leading to improvement of their standards of living (Takahashi and
Sasaki, 2017 p. 325). Involving the local will encourage them to learn a new language which is
an achievement to them and to the tourism sector. Introducing the local is a way of appreciating
what belongs to them and this will make them see the sector of tourism as a plan to help them
earn living.

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Locals always have a lot of knowledge on the destination of tourist in Kansai so if they
are used, it will be easy to offer services through government and private tourism companies.
The table below represents the summary of these recommendations:
Recommendation as to how a plan can be
enhanced
Justification
Digitalization Easy movement
Easy payment
Easy booking of tickets
Involvement of residents Offer employment
Knowledge about the destinations
Quality service offering
Always available
Conclusion
In conclusion, Kansai is the destination where every visitor will enjoy being there. The
food types which include noodles and shrine food are delicious and this is a good reason for
tourists to visit all destinations in the city of Kansai. Spiritual walks and walking on the bridges
built by the gods is another interesting thing which encourages visitors to come to the city of
Kansai. All the scenes in Kansai are among the best tourist attractions in Japan, and they give
the best tourist services compared to the other parts of the country. The number of visitors per
year increases and this shows a positive improvement in the area of tourism.
The only problem facing the sector of tourism in Kansai is on booking of tickets because
many tourists need to visit these destinations. The problem of digitalization is also facing Kansai
and the entire country of Japan, this problem should be dealt with to make purchasing and
payment of services easier. Introduction of a digital system will help in advertising and giving
simple instruction to those people arriving in Kansai. Involving private sectors to better the

Report of tourism in Kansai 2
services given to tourists. The government should employ private companies to take care of
tourists arriving in Kansai.
Also developing digital transport means as electric trains connecting these destinations.
This will improve transport among the locals and the tourism part. Also integration with other
Countries will make it affordable and easy to visit the Kansai town and other parts of
Japan because there is freedom of movement. The residents used should be educated and should
be good people who cannot kidnap visitors. Security should be another sector to improve on
because if security is not there no tourists will come to either Japan or to its cities such as
Kansai.

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