Traditional and popular tourist areas such as hot spring resorts have stagnated since the collapse of the bubble economy around 1990 in Japan. However, as the tourism for practical experiences and educational purposes attracts many people, it may be necessary to discover and exploit new tourist resources. One of the important and promising means is the commodification of rural spaces for tourism, leisure and recreations. At present one of the most important elements of rural changes in the developed countries including Japan is the transition from an economy based on production to an economy based on consumption. The most visible component of the consumption-based rural economy is tourism (Woods, 2005). This paper depicts the possibilities of developing tourist industries based on the commodification of rural spaces by presenting a case study of the Nasu Region in Tochigi Prefecture in Central Japan. In the Nasu Region attractive hot springs played an important role in forming famous tourist areas such as the Shiobara Hot Spring resort and the Nasu Highland resort. However, they are now attempting to revitalize their tourist industries by building hiking routes, introducing farm experiences, establishing farmers’ markets, and opening restaurants to serve dishes using local agricultural products. This strategy of redeveloping tourist industries firmly depends on the commodification of the rural spaces. In addition, a huge alluvial fan extending between the Shiobara Hot Spring resort and the Nasu Highland resort has many rural resources such as beautiful rural landscapes, historical sits of settlement, museums, repaired and improved irrigation canals, country roads, and monuments, that could be all used for the tourism for practical experiences and educational purposes. If the new types of tourist industries develop successfully, the Nasu Fan will integrate the two traditional tourist areas. In other words, the commodification of the rural space of the Nasu Fan will contribute to develop a vast and compound tourist region of Nasu extending from the Shiobara Hot Spring resort through the Nasu Fan to the Nasu Highland resort.

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This study examines possibilities of geographical approach for the sustainable development of tourism in World Heritage sites. In 1978, UNESCO began to register World Heritage to conserve sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance as the common heritage of humanity. Development of cultural tourism is an important purpose of the registration. Direct visiting of many people can make the World Heritage sites to have the advantage as a tourism resource, increasing importance of their value and conservation. The number of tourists has rapidly increased in many World Heritage sites. However, this trend brings problems in terms of site management. Although many travel agencies produce various package tours centered on visiting of World Heritage sites, there are little tours that tourists can have enough time to understand the value or significance. In Japan, the political promotion of tourism is rapidly advanced with focusing on the development of scientific researches on tourism. Therefore, it is necessary for geographers to develop strategies for the sustainable relationship between World Heritage site and tourism. This study outlined possible geographical approaches for tourism in World Heritage sites, discussing previous studies on tourism and definition of tourism by the Tourism Policy Council in Japan.

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This paper highlights the major trends and issues of retail geography in Japan. This paper reviews studies on retail geography after the mid- 1990s in the following on framework: That is the urban geography focusing on the retail locational studies. In the 1990 s, the Japanese government relaxed the restrictions under the Large-scale Retail Stores Act. As a result, many retail areas in built-up areas have decreased, while suburban large retail stores have increased. In 1998 , Government established the Large-scale Retail Store Locational Act and the Central District Vitalization Act, and revised the City Planning Act. These three acts constituted the "Three Acts of Machi-zukuri （Urban Development）". After the middle of 1990 s, many geographers have been interested in "Machi-zukuri" and the development process in central district. Most of papers on Machi-zukuri focused on the relationships between the decline of central districts and suburbanization of large-scale stores. After the 1990s, papers on retail areas analyzed the type of stores, the behavior of store owners in retail areas and their environment elements, for example, the retail planning policy, the revitalizing action and others. By researching retail areas in many aspects, we can find the factors sustaining the retail areas and explain the reason why retail area has changed. While there are relatively many studies about the economic effects of the changes in retail areas, there are few studies about social effects of the changes in retail areas. However, most of these studies are not interested in analyzing the urban retail system. Therefore, we do not have precise knowledge about the contemporary retail system in Japanese cities. We need to establish the new framework for analyzing the urban retail system for Japanese cities.

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[in Japanese]

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