2015 年 45 巻 1 号 p. 101-114
The number of visitors to Japan from foreign countries exceeded 10 million people in 2013. At present, more are expected in the near future, so regional inbound policies have become important for increasing foreign visitors. Taking this into consideration, in this report, the effects of the inbound policy is analyzed from the viewpoint of a wide area inbound policy.
Many wide-area inbound tourism associations are making an effort to promote an increase in foreign visitors, and one main supporter for the budgets is the local governments. As the main members of the inbound tourism associations and with knowledge of many attractive sightseeing spots in their areas, local governments may hope that associations will lead foreign visitors to their areas for economic benefits.
Based on this situation, the correlations between the wide area inbound policy and the economic effects of each prefecture in the ‘Chubu Wide-area Tourism Promotion Council’, which consists of nine prefectures （Toyama, Ishikawa, Fukui, Nagano, Gifu, Shizuoka, Aichi, Mie and Shiga Prefectures） in the central area of Japan were analyzed, using the Chubu Inter-industry Relations Table （I-O Table）.
According to the results, the inbound policy of the Council leads to the possibility that each prefecture may receive economic benefits to some extent, even though the policy itself doesn’t lend a specific merit to a specific region. On the whole, the inbound policy of the Council provides:（1） information on places that foreign visitors would like to visit and （2） what each local government wants to show to foreign visitors. As a result, the combination of these points is relatively balanced at present.
JEL Classification: R11, R15, R58
