Mapping the Spatial Relationship Between Tourism and the Cultural Landscape in Taketomi Island, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan

抄録

The growth in the number of tourists in cultural landscapes that shelter delicate ecosystems and preserve unique cultural identities addresses a theme of increasing concern around the world. The purpose of this study is to relate the spatial distribution of tourists in Taketomi Island with potential socio-environmental problems observed in the field during participant observation research. Using the application of a questionnaire directly with tourists and the projection of the results into official data from 2019, this study explored the relationship between tourists’ concentration and the cultural landscape’s vital systems by producing heat maps for different scenarios with varying visitors’ numbers. An uncontrolled scenario with a high number of visitors concentrating in the most visited spots was found to be potentially harmful to ecological balance and sociocultural prosperity in specific areas highlighted by the heat maps. This study suggests that limiting the number of tourists, investing in low impact infrastructure, and improving tourist turnover and flow could help to mitigate the negative impacts of tourism development in such an area. Further studies are needed to enhance the mapping methods and organically grasp the main variables connected to ecosystem preservation and cultural adaptation to the new tourism realities.