Takeshi Iwamoto: Expectations for the Opening of the Hokuriku Shinkansen Extension to Tsuruga—Reflecting on Tourism Policies Utilizing Digital Technology in Toyama Prefecture

First of all, I would like to express my deepest sympathies to everyone affected by the recent Noto Peninsula Earthquake.

With the opening of the Hokuriku Shinkansen in March 2015, the "New Toyama Prefecture Tourism Promotion Strategic Plan" was formulated in March 2016 as a plan to strategically promote tourism. According to this document, the establishment and development of a Japanese version of a DMO (Destination Management/Marketing Organization) was advocated due to the importance of tourism marketing. In fact, Toyama Prefecture strengthened the Prefectural Tourism Federation and established the "Toyama Tourism Organization." My initiatives, which I will describe later, were implemented as joint research with this "Toyama Tourism Organization."

Furthermore, according to the Development Bank of Japan, the flow of people from the Tokyo metropolitan area to Toyama Prefecture, which was about 2.4 million before the opening, increased by about 40% to 3.28 million (in 2017) after the Shinkansen opened, showing the magnitude of its impact. Regarding tourism, the number of visitors (based on Japan Tourism Agency standards) was 12.38 million before the opening, which increased by 23% to 15.23 million in 2015, and has maintained a similar level since then.

In this way, the opening of the Shinkansen had a significant impact on Toyama Prefecture's tourism and industry, even when looking at the numbers.

In 2016, I was consulted by the "Toyama Tourism Organization," established as mentioned above, regarding the direction of promoting tourism marketing digitally. At that time, platformers already held data for various tourism services. Additionally, mobile phone carriers were selling customer location data, and many sales pitches were being made to DMOs and others. However, because it is financially difficult to continue purchasing data indefinitely, the point I emphasized most in my advice was to create a mechanism for collecting tourist data in-house and to conduct continuous marketing.

Therefore, I proposed two methods and decided to proceed with them as joint research with my laboratory. One was a web survey system. We converted surveys that had previously been collected using paper at tourist spots into a web-based format so that they could be answered from anywhere. While web surveys themselves are not technologically advanced, I still believe that establishing a foundation for the DMO to collect its own data was important for raising awareness.

The other pillar was the development of a tourism app that could be used by anyone visiting Toyama Prefecture. We aimed to develop a platform to collect data on "what kind of tourists are interested in what information and where they actually went" by collecting location information in the background, gathering attribute information by linking it with the aforementioned survey data, and collecting information viewed on the app.

The web surveys are still being conducted today, and I believe we have succeeded in continuous data collection over a long period. On the other hand, while the app initiative was ambitious, there were many points for reflection, such as technical issues and the inability to secure cooperation from municipalities to create a system for maintaining attractive content. Although the scale was reduced due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I believe we were able to achieve certain results, such as conducting research on behavioral changes in tourists.

Looking back now, I think these efforts can be summarized as what is now called DX (Digital Transformation), but there were various problems in the process. In particular, when collecting the data mentioned above, I interviewed tourism officials from the prefecture and municipalities participating in the DMO about "what kind of data they wanted to utilize for policy planning," but I was unable to obtain clear answers.

In my personal opinion, many policies were created based on handovers or requests, and the concept of EBPM (Evidence Based Policy Making) was even less widespread than it is today. On the other hand, through this joint research, I believe I was able to help change awareness slightly by holding workshops on the utilization of digital data.

Finally, I would like to state what I believe will be necessary in the future regarding the Tsuruga extension opening. That is to develop a common digital data platform that can capture the activities and needs of tourists visiting the three prefectures of the Hokuriku region.

When it comes to understanding tourists, there is no point in handling data separately by prefectural divisions. In fact, there is already a movement to standardize survey data across the three prefectures, and the aforementioned survey system is currently being modified. I hope that such movements will accelerate and that tourism promotion in the Hokuriku region based on data will progress.