In this paper, I firstly pointed out that various actors’ voices and practices have not been depicted adequately because tourism-based community development studies were weighted toward introducing best practices and creating practical manuals. Then, I reviewed studies reconsidering Kanko Machizukuri as a national project with a critical perspective as well as focusing on the conflict and friction that occur when local residents try to engage in tourism-based community development, which share a skeptical point of view regarding tourism-based community development studies. After reviewing the studies, I tried to rethink tourism-based community development research through a case study of Yufuin, which has been spotlighted as a successful region of tourism-based community development and has also been focused on municipal merger conflict. By focusing on the friction and conflict between varied actors, we can determine that the voices and practices that have not been described enough have played crucial roles in shaping present-day Yufuin.

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This paper examines how guests become hosts in the Ogasawara/Bonin islands, and suggests that the nature of the guest-host relationship is fluid, not fixed.
Ogasawara is located approximately 1,000 km south of Tokyo. Settlement in this island began in the 19th century by Americans and Europeans. Ogasawara became a Japanese territory at the end of the 19th century, and migration from mainland Japan then started. After World War II, Ogasawara became part of the US occupation, and no Japanese people were allowed to live on the island until the occupation ended in 1968. Since then, Ogasawara has shifted their traditional economy from one based on whaling to ecotourism. Ogasawara has come to be recognized as an advanced ecotourism area in Japan, and it was selected as a UNESCO World Natural Heritage site in 2011.
The main focus of this paper is the case of “new islanders,” who migrate from mainland Japan after initially visiting the island as guests. Today, more than half of the islanders are “new islanders,” and they are therefore not a minority. Many of them are involved in ecotourism activities. It is assumed that a tourism resource is something hosts sell and guests buy. This explanation however is not sufficient to adequately explain the case of Ogasawara society. My previous research shows that one of the characteristics of Ogasawara’s ecotourism is that the “new islander” lifestyle and guests are closely related; however, for a better understanding of the relationship between the lifestyle of “new islanders” and tourism, it is necessary to incorporate perspectives of the host-guests relationship. This paper, therefore, specifically examines which aspects of the “new islanders’” lifestyle leads to guests become new Ogasawara islanders.
The fieldwork revealed that tourists observe the lifestyle of “new islanders,” and at the same time, “new islanders” stage their living for the tourists. This staging works well because the “new islanders” know how to present what tourists want, as they were once tourists themselves. As a result, tourists admire life in Ogasawara. I found that tourists become “new islanders” not simply through ecotourism but also by the staging performed by “new islanders.” The analysis shows that the host-guests relationship in Ogasawara is not fixed but fluid, as seen when guests have become hosts. Tourism in Ogasawara, of course, brings tourists but also brings those who will become new members of the island. However, some of them leave the island eventually because they are unable to adopt an ecotourism-based lifestyle. Only those “new islanders” who could adopt the ecotourism philosophy are able to settle in Ogasawara. Therefore, it can be said that the islanders are selected, and that is the fluidity of the host-guest relationship in Ogasawara.

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This study analyzes the objectification of popular culture in tourism from the viewpoint of cultural constructivism, which represents a contradicting cultural nature to that of traditional tourism objects. As examples, tourism in Sakaiminato-shi and Ueda-shi are discussed, which have two contrasting cultural attractions: comics and history, respectively. This study illustrates that, contrary to superficial appearance, the actual tourism cultures in these areas are beyond normative categories such as popular and traditional culture. The mutual decontextualization of traditional and popular culture in tourism shows that contemporary tourism is establishing new cultural values that cannot be explained by the customary dichotomy.

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Ethics is a crucial aspect of any field. Some discipline-specific types of ethics are well known, such as information ethics, bioethics, and business ethics. However, in tourism research and education, ethics has not yet been recognized as a major field of study.
Ethical issues related to tourism in Japan have shifted away from the problems of ethics in services provided to tourists and those related to actions, such as causing shame, that violate international etiquette. Instead, ethics in tourism now focuses on actions that negatively affect the culture of the tourism destination, its society, and its natural environment. Moreover, the thinking about ethics in tourism has expanded from the ethics of tourism operators to that of tourists themselves. However, exactly what tourism ethics comprises has not yet been clarified; therefore, the exact scope of the term “tourism ethics” remains unclear. Thus, research on practical tourism ethics is currently on hold.
Why has practical education and research on tourism ethics not progressed very far? According to previous studies, the issues relating to stakeholders in tourism are complex, as are the problems of identifying ethical criteria. In this study, I analyze the problem between the actors and objects in a tourism context from the perspective of whether ethics should be considered in said context. Next, I examine the criteria for ethics and identify a range of areas of tourism ethics as follows: the ethics of active actors in tourism (along with tourism promoters, local beneficiaries, brokers, and tourists) to local residents, tourism attractions, the natural environment, and tourists for sustainable tourism.
To implement sustainable tourism, tourism ethics must be developed using many approaches. Especially, practical research on educational approaches for sustainable tourism has been delayed. I therefore propose that it would be useful to make the educational approaches for sustainable tourism part of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) as　Education for Sustainable Tourism (EST).

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It is said that sacred places have been getting popular recently. Does it mean religion has gained ground globally? In my view such trends have something to do with religious tourism rather than religious revival. If so, the question would be why religion has been regarded as an important resource for tourism recently. I think a clue to the question lies in religious transformation in late modern society which has a high affinity with consumption. In this paper I’d like to examine the trends of a commodification of religion in the context of late modern society from a macro sociological perspective, referring to the case of “the Nagasaki Church Group” which is expected to be designated as a world heritage site. At first, taking a brief look at the trends of utilizing a religious heritage as a touristic resource in Japan, I’d like to focus on two church tour packages, named ”Nagasaki pilgrimage” released by Nagasaki Tourist Federation in corporation with Catholic Archdiocese of Nagasaki in detail. Then, in order to analyze that situation, I shall refer briefly to the study of sacred places and the theory of sociology of religion. Specifically the “economic market model” which is advocated by some American sociologists like Rodney Stark shall be discussed. According to the model, vitality of religion depends on a religious free market in which each church can compete freely for recruiting people without regulation from the state. Although the model has been heavily criticized, it seems to me that the basic idea that the trends of religion can be analyzed in terms of an exchange between consumers and suppliers in the religious market is useful for understanding commodification of religion. Then, I shall point out some characteristics of contemporary religion which can be called “light religion”, referring to S. Bauman’s “liquid modernity”. Finally, I’d like to argue that these features of religious transformation, including an emergence of light religion in the late modern society, may have a close connection with the popularity of religious tourism.

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This study identifies the elements that create and maintain the “sacred quality” of sacred places that have been converted into tourist attractions. This study particularly focuses on the techniques of sanctuary management and the mechanisms of spatial expansion while clarifying said topic from an ethnographical perspective. Sefa-Utaki in Okinawa is a sacred place, held in highest regard, which has served as a key location of worship since the Ryukyu Kingdom period. It has also been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Moreover, in the 2010s, it witnessed a sudden increase in visitors. As a result, its administration is facing the challenge of maintaining not only the natural environment but also the religious and faith characteristics that are an integral part of the sanctuary. The sustainable maintenance of the sanctuary’s religious characteristics can be clarified from various perspectives. This paper particularly focuses on the visual techniques of the bulletin board, the approach path, and zoning in an effort to describe the conditions having an effect on the awareness and behavior of visitors. In addition, this paper identifies whether the conflict between religion and tourism can be avoided (although not thoroughly) through management initiatives by public administration, such as structures or objects, volunteers, and a system for the protection of the cultural heritage connected to the sanctuary space.

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This paper examines the folk religious practice re-formed in Tibet as a peripheralized land in modern China, which is undergoing transitional modernization under the communist regime.
On the contemporary Tibetan Plateau, the “Development West” project that started in 2000 has continued now for over 15 years. Thereby, the infrastructure network comprising huge dams, the power network supplied by hydroelectric power stations, highways, and airports, the Qinghai-Tibet railway, and the 3G broadband networks are widely covering the Tibetans’ rural communities. The complex of modernity spread by this state-led development has an extensive influence on the holy places in Tibet that were previously isolated from society by being located in inhospitable natural environments. Such entangled situations where religiosity and modernity are deployed intricately in the physical space of a holy place cannot be sufficiently grasped by the traditional Buddhism-centered approach, which has analyzed the structure of the holy place by examining the cosmological framework given to its natural space.
In this paper, after acknowledging the fundamental fact that the holy place is a physical space, I examine how the structure of the holy place that was materialized by interpreting “natural space” as “pure land” is influenced by the modernity that pervades the holy place from the outside. My observations are based on concrete research data on an actual pilgrimage site in the northeastern part of Tibet.
The focal point of my research is a snowcapped holy mountain called “Amnye Machen” (rma chen gangs ri), located in Golok Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, occupying the southeastern part of Qinghai province. This mountain entered the sexagenary-cycle pilgrimage year in 2014, the horse year, and a huge number of pilgrims flocked to it throughout the year. The distance of the pilgrimage circuit is 180 km, and pilgrims can walk around the entire mountain in 5–7 days. This great holy mountain is characterized by the various myths centering on one of the most famous mountain gods in Tibet, Machen Pomra, and is also famous as a powerful place since numerous yogins and lamas had visited for meditation practice.
In this paper, I adopt a detailed viewpoint based on the latest fieldwork data of the intensive interviews with local traders, monks, developers, etc. in order to scrutinize the various people in this holy place who gain economic profits and other types of benefits by utilizing the venue’s value in belief as a “commercial resource.” Moreover, since their field for development activities physically covers the entire pilgrimage route, the traditional religious activities cannot help but be influenced by their economic practices.

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According to Ian Reader (2014), a recent characteristic of modern pilgrimages is the fulfillment of the pilgrims’ private and individual desires, as opposed to the fulfillment of something that is expected of them by their religious organization or sect. Moreover, holy places also offer the fulfillment of such desires in many ways, an important one of which is the selling of commodities related to pilgrimage.
In the case of Islam, Hajj differs in character from the other pilgrimages that Reader considered. First, it is difficult for ordinary Muslims to make the Hajj due to its long waiting time and high costs. Second, unlike what Reader mentioned, in order to accomplish the Hajj, one must comply with Islamic law, which decides its details. However, the Hajj and Mecca have also been influenced by market forces in a way that does not contradict the law, like other pilgrimages. For example, shopping for commodities related to Mecca is one of the most important factors for Hajj pilgrims. In addition, ordinary Muslims who cannot visit Mecca also indulge in the consumption of such commodities. Interior ornaments related to Mecca are common in ordinary Muslim spaces. They are thus important, as they enable Muslims who live far away from Mecca to consider their relationship with the holy place and also keep them interested in Hajj. This paper aims to examine the commodification of holy places by analyzing the case of interior ornaments in Tunisia.
Fieldwork at 110 ordinary Muslim spaces in a village in south Tunisia over two years showed that there are 348 Islamic interior ornaments, including ornaments with designs related to the holy place, and 594 normal ornaments. Almost all Islamic interior ornaments are calendars containing advertisements for companies that distribute them for free to their customers. The sponsors of these advertisements use the Mecca symbol because almost all costumers like this symbol and because the calendars then cannot be discarded as they contain the holy symbol. This is why Islamic calendars are widely spread in ordinary Muslim spaces. However, Muslims in the Tunisian village bother to treat it as a holy symbol after a few years passed, because it is prohibited to discard them, although they no longer inform them about dates. Therefore, some of them cut and discard the advertisement and the date portion of the calendar, keeping only the holy part. Further, in Tunisia, some studios specialize in framing these cutout parts of the calendars, which the people can then keep and put in their spaces.
This case showed that most of the circulated Islamic interior ornaments in Tunisian village are calendars that are mass produced and distributed for free. This means that the symbol of Mecca is comparable to an advertising tool. However, unlike other ornaments, some Muslims avoid discarding ornaments with this symbol, and therefore, it is commoditized and mass produced to a limited extent. Such ornaments are not only mediators between the holy place and ordinary spaces, but they are also themselves holy through those process. Ordinary Muslims who cannot visit Mecca reform the Islamic calendars with the Mecca symbol, and these processes also reformulate those places as holy.

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