Mass-information media such as guidebooks, novels, movies, and TV dramas present images of tourist areas. This research aims to investigate changes in the content of one guidebook series concerning Mt. Fuji. Mt. Fuji offers many tourist attractions, including climbing the mountain, viewing it, and shopping in its vicinity. The content featured over the 20 years during which the guidebook series has been published is divided into four periods, which are characterised as follows: sightseeing period (1st period: 1995), leisure and activity period (2nd period: 1996 to 1999), climbing period (3rd period: 2000 to 2008), and climbing and general activities period (4th period: 2009 to 2014). During the 1st period, the word “resort” was important in the guidebooks' content, crafting an image of Mt. Fuji tourism that was led by a resort boom in Japan. The words “leisure,” “history,” and “nature” acquired significance in the 2nd period, when content concerning some activities increased in the guidebooks against the background of a connection between tourism and regional promotion. Guidebooks of the 3rd period heavily used imagery of climbing to characterise Mt. Fuji tourism, with the words “entrance” and “climbing” appearing frequently. This period coincided with a generational transition among climbers, during which there was an increase in Japan of younger climbers and female climbers. During the 4th period, climbing remained the most significant topic of the guidebooks; however, words related to recent Japanese tourism topics, such as “B-grade” “gourmet” “local” and “holy place” took important positions alongside the topic of climbing, because B-grade gourmet products within the Mt. Fuji region such as pan-fried noodles in Fujinomiya city became famous during the 2000s. As a whole, the content of the tourism guidebooks over the years illustrates changes in perceptions of Mt. Fuji from diverse and general images of leisure and pleasure to specific images of climbing.
