How should we create a blueprint for “tourismology”? In this paper I have tried to create such a blueprint by tracing the curriculum of departments of tourism at four-year universities in Japan. An interesting finding is that certain courses are more frequently taught at the six universities which have departments of tourism. For example the five courses: Introduction to Tourism, Tourism Business, Tourism Geography, Hospitality Management, and Tourism Destination Development, are taught at all of the universities. These courses are the central elements in a blueprint for “tourismology”. Furthermore, the seventeen courses which are all taught at at least three of the departments may be grouped into four general areas, leading us to the working hypothesis that the study of tourism is organized into these academic areas: (1) Introduction to tourism study (comprising courses covering tourism in general, tourism business, and research methodology), (2) Tourism study based on the social sciences, (3) Tourism study from the point of view of engineering approaches to regional development, (4) Tourism study from the point of view of business administration.

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The systematic tourism field of study is not yet clear. This research should be done interdisiplinary. Travel or tourism has a multidimensional phenomenon. The study field is so complicated. It needs to be matrix: provided that the horizontal entries are listed as the main systemes of tourism transportation, lodging, sightseeing objectives; and the vertical entries are listed as tourist behavior, tourism resources, means of tourism circumstances of economical, social, and ecological conditions. And to do so that, we could identify the fields of study in those crosspoint. These field represent an interdisciplinary study involving economics, sociology, statistics, communication, geology, marketing in related tourism. The field of study is not confine to tourism phenomena, but also should be include a philosophical value in their tourism behavior under the theme of Dynamic Tourism Study rather than phenomenon Tourism study. Trourism is a kind of human behavior. Without this viewpoint we could not develop our academic tourism theory.

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This paper aims at clarifying characteristics peculiar to projects in tourism business, which require a long period of preparation and a considerable amount of investment. As concrete case, I chose several golf-course development projects around the beginning of the 1990s, the heyday of the so-called “bubble” economy, when resort development mushroomed throughout Japan. It is a noteworthy fact that, in the cases chosen, Sumitomo Bank and Itoman committed themselves in providing substantial amount of capital. The fact is all the more perplex that these projects were sanctioned in such large companies, where very conservative accounting practices and stringent internal control system are firmly established. A close examination of the decision making process reveals two crucial facts. First, unrealized profit relating to the projects or evaluation of it took place prior to examining viability of extending collateral loan. Furthermore, evaluation of collareral was conducted without checking validity of the projected (unrealized) profit. It is all the more surprising to find the absence of “capital gain” throughout the process, a notion heavily criticized in the post-bubble period. The above cases raise, thus, a number of questions in the field of business administration, and are varthy of close scrutiny.

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We first specify an exponential tourist utility function in form and derive a function to estimate the level of tourism landscape for the tourist from constrained utility maximization. Then, the derived function is applied to cost-effectiveness analysis of the public construction industry. Finally, the optimum construction cost function is simulated. Consequently, we find that the planner must increase optimum height cost up to around the fourth floor when elasticity of cost with respect to level of height ε is smaller, but from that level, can decrease cost gradually and increase sharply the cost when ε is larger.

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The prosperity of the Japanese hotel industry kept pace with the growth of The Japanese economy. When the so-called “bubble economy” was crushed, however, the industry fell into confusion. Moreover, it is now at a critical stage: stagnant sales volume and diminishing profits. It is keenly seeking successful strategies which enable to improve the above situations. The aim of this paper is to analyze the emerging market circumstances, and to provide various strategies for hotels facing the 21st century to effectively revitalize themselves and adapt to the market conditions.

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This paper clarified the features of Italian agritourism at current stage and the characteristics of the activities of these farms we surveyed. Italian agritourism is now in a growing stage, and the activities in the central region is most active and promising. In Umbria one of the outstanding characteristics of agritourism farms is a variety of on-farm activities by combining accommodation service with various activities such as offering local foods, selling their own farm products, and giving horse-riding service etc. in order to prepare for recreational needs of urban guests. Some of them are entrants from urban areas who bring business spirit into rural areas. Thus, the agritourism is considered to be creating a new field in line with one of the good traditions of Italian family business.

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Since 1980 the cruise market in North America has been growing at a rate of 10 per cent per year and the market has now become the largest in the world with 4,500,000 passengers per year. In order to study the above mentioned market, the author has recently experienced the cruising twice in the Caribbean Sea. On this paper, the author clarifies, based on his cruise experience, how the Caribbean cruise market has developed into the world’s largest cruise market and what strategy the cruise lines have taken. Further, the author studies why the cruise market in Singapore has recently made spectacular growth and suggests, based on the two success stories, what strategy the Japanese cruise lines should take for the future.

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The goal of this study is to exhibit the quality of hospitality human resources in tourism. The customer value and the inter-creative process of hospitality will be the unique and indispensable reference to consider tourism as the stage of enhancing reciprocal human value. The Maslow's theory is introduced as the indication of hospitality quality level, process of hospitality, and result of hospitality. In considering the impact of ethics or philosophy on the process of tourism management, it is important to understand the responsibility as a host or a guest. The superior exchanging hospitality is designated in the range of the fifth stage of Maslow's theory.

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The Study attempts to provide a general view of: a. conceptualization of KANKO phenomena b. basic proposition on KANKO-logy c. construction of KANKO-logy for the future systematization of KANKO-logy (study of tourism).

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Questionnaire about street market of Kochi City was implemented for to discovering agriculture and forest products as sightseeing resources of agriculture and mountainous villages, from a view of promotion of agriculture, forestry and villages. The street market of Kochi City has held since 300 years ago, and about 650 stores open 1 km along a roadside. 50 percent of dealer consisted of Kochi City residents. Agricultural products account for 80 to 90 percent of goods. Customers from Kochi City account for 60 to 80 percent, and sightseeing visitors amount to 30 percent. Main reasons for visits were to buy fresh goods and to enjoy shopping. About 40 thousands of people visit the Sunday market. Roles of the Sunday market for regional sightseeing considered to inherit life and culture hold natural products and agricultural village products.

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The purpose of this report is to analyze trends in the tourist ryokan business in Noto peninsula, Ishikawa prefecture. The results are summarized as follows: It is noticeable that packeged tours by travel agencies play an important role in business of the inns. 80 percent of the total annual turnover of an inn depends on the packeged tours. The inns are located at seaside resorts, so they regard seafood as a major sales point. New dishes and local dishes are developed enthusiastically. Baths have been a problem in the past because guests lack interest in them. The baths have been said to be narrow. The inns have attempted to improve the quality of the baths. Efforts of the inns to improve baths are as follows: 1)baths in the top floors, 2) baths in which medical herb is posited, 3) baths the guests can use all day. In the off season, every inn makes original plans to gather the local guests.

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This paper aims to present an overall view of tourism labor and to clarify the actual conditions and problems of the human resouces management in the tourism enteprise, which is one of the most labor-intensive service enterprises. The tourism labor has specific characteristics such as requirements for customer relations skill, shift work to meet tourism demand around the clock and seasonal work. In Japan, tourism employment greatly relys on part-time workers, entrusting work to suppliers and so on. Working conditions are not good. Tourism lobor requires four particular skills; occupational skills, hospitable attitude, information and communication skills, and foreign language skills. The main purpose of human resources management is to efficiently utilize human resources as production resources. However, in oder to overcome increasing problems on tourism labor and to develop the tourism enterprise, threre is a need for the human resources management, especially respecting humanity. In other words, for the survival of tourism enterprises, in addition to customers satisfaction (CS), employees satisfaction (ES) is also reqiured.

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The product liablity law of Japan became effective on 1 July 1995. The concept of product liability was proposed by the United States of America in the 1960’s. This law has been established and enforced by many countries, mostly the advanced nations of the world since then. The ground of remedial law for injeries of consumers is used to be based on the tort liability of the Civil Code. (from the Civil Code in Article 709 on) However, the torts apply not only injuries by products but also injuryies by all actions. When an injured party demanded a compensation for damages from the other party, it was difficult to give proof by the tort libility. And so it came to a settlement by the easy burden of proof of the product liability law. What kinds of cases do the botel and the restaurant related industries have to take the responsibility? How do they have to prepare for prevention on injury? This report made the product liability law clear with reference to the authentic law and the precedents when the distributor, including the manufacturer take the responsibility.

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