Characteristics of percentage of foreign guests in Hokuriku region

Abstract

The rates of the total number of foreign visitors from each country/region and the rates of the total number of guests in the Hokuriku region (including three prefectures: Fukui, Ishikawa, and Toyama) before the spread of corona infection ( 2019) are compared. The total number of foreign guests in the region were about 1.2 million in that year and the number of Ishikawa had the highest rate 64.3 % and Toyama was 27.5 %. The one for Fukui was 8.2 %. The number of guests from Taiwan were the largest in all prefectures and the total guest number from China was lower than the one for Taiwan. Chinese visitors account for 30 % of total number of foreign visitors to Japan and the number is maximum. In Fukui Prefecture, the personal travel expenditure for Chinese visitors is the largest of main countries/regions and it is necessary to increase Chinese guests for the local economy as a short-term target. The percentage of South Korean visitors is small even though there are regular flights. It is desired to increase South Korean visitors, for example by constructing a new market oriented strategy. Although there are some types of human exchange, friendship/sister-city tie-up can be thought of as a typical exchange. It is effective to promote educational and business exchanges based on a tie-up and to maintain a certain number of exchange people. And, it is important that the exchanging population is expanded. The number of partnered municipalities of foreign countries is about 90 in the Hokuriku region. The partner municipalities in China remains at a small rate (26 %), though Japan has some kinds of deep connections with China, especially in the economic field. There is a high potential to promote human exchange considering the Chinese population and bilateral distance.