The paper aims to clarify the nature of “tourism with hometowns as destinations” by focusing on the transition of the hometown into a tourist destination and analyzing it from the perspective of authenticity. In recent years, the concept of hometown has been utilized in policies aimed at regional revitalization. However, visiting one’s hometown has not been clarified in tourism studies. Therefore, this paper examines the concept of hometown from three perspectives: “ancestral tourism,” which focuses on travelers visiting their ancestral lands, “furusato tourism,” which is based on the image of traditional Japan, and a relational framework. Subsequently, “hometown tourism” is a phenomenon born out of an overlap between ancestral and furusato tourism. Hometown tourism connects travelers and their hometowns in a new way.

Japanese traditional crafts culture has long been built on a continuous cycle of production and consumption of crafts. This has been changing recently due to the emergence of experience-based consumption that does not necessarily require the sale of goods. The purpose of this study is to investigate how commodification processes of experience and interpersonal exchange within a craft production site affect the industry. By using the theoretical framework of “re-enchantment” in the theories of consumption, this article will argue that in the case of Takaoka Craft Tourism, the site of production, handcraft techniques, and craftsmen are re-enchanted as tourism attractions. This study concludes with a warning that while the consumers (the tourists) are satisfied with their consumption of experience and interpersonal exchange, the livelihoods of craft producers are still bound up with the sales of crafts.

This study attempted to organize the background of the relationship between deer and people as wildlife tourism, based on the understanding that wildlife tourism as a sustainable form of tourism that contributes to the conserva-tion of the species. To this end, this study clarified the relationship between wild deer and people such as resi-dents and visitors in Miyajima since the Early Modern Period, and to compare it with the situation of deer in Nara, where wildlife tourism has been established. It was confirmed that the relationship between wild deer and people in Miyajima had not been established as wildlife tourism from the early modern period to the postwar period. The authors concluded that the reason for this was that the establishment of wildlife tourism requires the will of the local community to share the same space and maintain a close relationship between wild deer and people and that while there was a religious background in Nara, there was no such background in Miyajima.

Geisha towns were once found in large numbers all over Japan, but little research has been conducted on how they were established, their spatial and architectural characteristics, and their social structure. This study examines these topics through a case study of Shinhama in Miyazu City, Kyoto Prefecture. As a castle town and port in Japan’s early modern period, Miyazu developed as a commercial center for the production and supply of textiles, such as Tango chirimen silk crepe fabrics used in kimonos and obi sashes, and as a tourist destination known for Amanohashidate, a pine-covered sandbar considered one of Japan’s “three most scenic views.” The spatial history and architecture of the geisha town of this provincial city are investigated through the study of land survey maps, land registers, old photographs, and architectural surveys, as well as interviews. In the process, a picture is also painted of Shinhama’s red light district as it was in early modern times.

In this study, we clarified the basic elements that Japanese tourists require for Omiyage (souvenirs) based on an online quantitative survey using the web consisting of 700 men and women of a wide range of generations. Re-viewing research on Omiyage, we set questions and conducted factor analysis. We found six factors for food Omiyage: “certainty,” “gift,” “uniqueness,” “locality,” “experiences/memories,” and “famousness.” For non-food Omiyage, five factors were extracted: “certainty,” “locality,” “experience / memories,” “gift,” and “uniqueness.” In addition, we provide clarification that “authenticity” is composed of “certainty,” “locality,” and “famousness” for food Omiyage and “certainty” and “locality” for non-food Omiyage.