In Japan, an increase in industrial tourism that makes uses the of regions’ special characteristics is expected, particularly in Chukyo, with its flourishing manufacturing industry. Specific visitors making such “technical visits” are provided with focused technical and professional information. However, the actual technical visit process has not been sufficiently clarified. Using a case study of AVEX Inc., this paper evaluates the service quality of technical visits for foreigners based on SERVPERF. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to assess the hypotheses regarding relationships among model constructs.

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This study uses “Mobile Kukan Toukei™” (MOBILE SPATIAL STATISTICS) to identify the number of visitors in different periods at specific tourist destinations. Mobile Kukan Toukei is statistical population data created by the operational data of mobile phone networks. The service makes it possible to estimate the population structure of a region by gender, age, and residential area. In addition, it attempts to demonstrate an alternative method to infer the number of visitors in specific areas more accurately. The various interests of tourists influence their keyword search before or during travel, and ultimately emerge as some kind of trend in a specific keyword’s search volume. By connecting the Mobile Kukan Toukei and keyword search volume, linear equations could be derived. These findings could lead to a model to forecast tourism demand in a destination.

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The Japanese government is promoting measures to apply the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to local governments under the framework of the “Regional Revitalization Policy”. As part of this, the “SDGs Future City” project was launched in fiscal year 2017. Sustainable development is strongly required in the Japanese tourism industry. The paper explores the following four research areas: (1) the changing trend from mass tourism planned by travel agents to regional destination-planned tourism;, (2) management shortage problems of destination management and marketing organizations (DMOs) and tourism associations (TAs); (3) the regional tourism industry and rural revitalization planned by destination and corresponding to specific SDG goals and targets; and (4) an international case study of the tourism industry and rural revitalization linking urban and rural areas in Italy.

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The paper proposes to present the silent revolution taking place in India related to battery-powered e-rickshaws. Though many State and Central Governments did come forward with some schemes to promote e-rickshaws, the main reason for this rapid growth has been the opportunity of self-employment (as drivers) for uneducated and poor people, who migrated to cities in search of livelihood. Taking advantage of this, many manufacturers started producing e-rickshaws with low-cost parts imported from China. These manufacturing factories along with their ancillary units and distribution centres also provided jobs to a large number of semi-skilled persons. Some agencies provided further growth by purchasing a large number of e-rickshaws and giving these on rent to the poor people. But still there are possibilities of further growth if Central/State Governments and manufacturers can take some measures, recommended in the paper.

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In view of climate change considerations, the Government of India is putting all efforts and asking the auto manufacturers to reduce the internal combustion engine driven vehicles and increase the electric vehicles on the Indian roads. The Government has announced that 30 per cent of all the vehicles must be electric by 2030 and has also made policies related to the charging infrastructures required. But there will be millions of e-buses, private e-cars and e-cabs, mostly concentrated in large/metro cities; and that would demand enormous power to be supplied to these cities. By computations of power demand in 2030 for e-buses, private e-cars, e-cabs, e-rickshaws and e-scooters, this paper proposes to highlight this aspect of power demands of electric vehicles on major cities, which has not been covered in any technical literature so far, especially for the Indian National Grid.

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Technological developments are in progress to realize automated driving, and people with physical disabilities are anticipating such support. The commercialization of automated vehicles will form an ideal means of mobility for people with physical disabilities as it will permit them to move from door-to-door and improve their quality of life (QOL). When a fully-automated driving system is developed, the operation of vehicles will rely solely on this system. However, at this time, all drivers need to handle acute situations by controlling their vehicles by themselves. Is it possible for physically-impaired drivers to take appropriate actions in such situations? People with spinal cord injuries—who include those with lower-limb disabilities—have to steer and regulate their speed simultaneously by using only their upper-limbs. This makes their driving posture and behavior unstable, and they find it more difficult to handle acute situations than people without physical disabilities. A manual operation-device operates simultaneously with the accelerator and the brake pedal of a vehicle. Taking this device as an example, it is installed in a limited space around the driving seat after the car is purchased, and this causes the device to be located in a position that does not suit the driver. The device is not designed for drivers to steer their car according to their physical condition, but rather it is designed for people to adjust their posture to drive.

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