[LINK] "China's growing sway felt in north Japan ski town"

[rfmcdonald]

Does the future of the Hokkaido ski resort town of Niseko depend on Chinese tourism? That's the contention of the Associated Press' Malcolm Foster.

Japan has set the ambitious goal of tripling its number of foreign tourists from 8.6 million last year to 25 million by 2020. With its population shrinking and economy flat, Japan must open up to trade, investment and tourism, Prime Minister Naoto Kan declares, if it is to reverse a slow decline. But it's a tall order in this historically insular country.

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In early February, the place was swamped with families from the Chinese-speaking world, particularly Hong Kong, for the Lunar New Year, marked with fireworks at the base of Mount Annapuri.

Property agents say Hong Kong and Singapore buyers account for 70-80 percent of condominium and land purchases, with interest emerging from Malaysia and mainland China. Japanese developers are largely absent, still gun-shy from an early 1990s property market collapse.

"The Japanese are complacent," said C.J. Wysocki, a Hong Kong-based American lawyer for GE's aircraft business. He built an apartment building with 10 units in Hirafu and sold several to wealthy Asians. "The foreigners are the ones who are saying this place is amazing, it needs to be preserved."

Foreign tourists spent nearly 200,000 hotel nights in area accommodations last winter, up from just 7,800 eight years ago, according to the Niseko Promotion Board, which has hired Korean and Chinese speakers to field questions and maintain its foreign language websites.

Mainland Chinese visitors accounted for 6,100 nights and are expected to top 40,000 within five years, said Tomokazu Aoki, the board's deputy administrative director.

[. . .]

Mainland Chinese are coming to Japan in record numbers -- 1.4 million last year, second only to South Koreans -- and they are collectively the biggest spenders. Snapping up cameras, cosmetics and handbags, they make up about a quarter of foreign tourist consumption.

Still, many experts are skeptical that the Niseko formula will work in the many hot springs and ski towns that are in slow decline. Many resist foreign influence, and Kerr calls them "hopelessly old-fashioned."

Hakuba, a ski resort in central Japan, has seen an increase in Australians, but many residents feel strongly about protecting the local culture and don't want change, said Yasuaki Enari, deputy director general of the Hakuba Tourism Bureau.

"Tourism is going to be a massively important industry for Japan in the future, and people haven't caught onto that yet," Kerr said. "The few places like Niseko that have really picked up on it are going to see an economic boom" while the rest will be in trouble in 20 years.