留学生の観光振興プロジェクト参加
著者
村田 由美恵
著者別名
MURATA Yumie
雑誌名
東洋大学人間科学総合研究所紀要
号
19
ページ
213-218
発行年
2017-03
URL
http://id.nii.ac.jp/1060/00008746/
Creative Commons : 表示 - 非営利 - 改変禁止 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.ja1. Introduction
The faculty of Regional Development Studies at Toyo University has been providing domestic and interna-tional students with opportunities to work on various community projects through field studies and cultural ex-change events (Murata, 2013 ; Murata, 2015) with international students, increasing campus diversity, and pro-viding alternative views regarding community involvement.
This study focuses on tourism promotions that involved international students. Specifically, tourism pro-motion activities focusing on international undergraduate and exchange program students at Japanese universi-ties are examined to promote further discussion on preferred educational programs for international students of Toyo University.
2. Background
In 2013, inbound tourists to Japan numbered 10 million ; the Japanese government aims to attract 40 mil-lion international visitors by 2020. To achieve this objective, it is necessary to not only enhance the attractive-ness of the well-known tourist destinations but also attract more tourists toward minor tourist destinations. For depopulated or aging areas, enhancing tourism promotions could be a good opportunity to stimulate industry in the region.
To attract more foreign visitors, it is necessary that advice from foreigners be sought to enable the develop-ment of better services. Therefore, foreign residents and international students in Japan have been invited to monitor tourism service development. For example, in a project called “Dispatch Business Supporter ” (Japan Tourism Agency, 2011), international students in Japan gave their opinions and supported tourism by promoting the region toward their home countries. As international students are expected to be prospective human
re-Tourism Promotion Projects with International Students
Yumie MURATA
＊＊ A lecturer in the Faculty of Regional Development Studies, and a research fellow of the Institute of Human Sciences at Toyo University
Refer to the project’s website : <http : //www.visitjapan-suppoter.jp>
sources in information technology (IT) and tourism areas (JETRO, 2016), recruiting and training international students in these areas is important for Japanese universities. In the next section, attempts by Japanese universi-ties to get international students involved in tourism promotion are reported, followed by a discussion on the preferred educational programs for the future recruitment of international students by Japanese universities.
Tourism Promotion involving International Students 3-1. Undergraduate Students
Of all international students, undergraduate students could be better candidates than graduate students for tourism promotion activities. As graduate students are primarily engaged in research, they have little time for extracurricular activities. In contrast, undergraduate students have more time to spend on extracurricular activi-ties and their participation would also be a good opportunity for them to improve their understanding of Japa-nese culture.
Since 2011, the Nagasaki Wesleyan University has concluded comprehensive agreements with the Na-gasaki Prefectural government’s International Affairs Department. In the Shimabara peninsula and Unzen spa, domestic and international undergraduate students have participated in tourism promotion activities such as tourism resource surveys, multilingual tourism map development, Japanese web page translations, submission of suggestion reports aimed at better local services for foreigners, creation of a multilingual gourmet maps for SIT (Special Interest Tourist), and transmission of tourist information on the local government’s website or by social networking services (SNS) (Kato, 2016). Kato (2016) reported on student activities that involved the develop-ment of Unzen spa area maps based on field studies and generation of ideas to attract more foreign visitors to the region.
In Toyo University, international students from the Faculty of Regional Development Studies participated in tourism promotion activities on the shopping streets in Kita ward, Tokyo (Institute of Regional Vitalization Studies at Toyo University, 2015). Domestic and international students were involved in activities such as trans-mitting tourist information using SNS, developing services for multilingual shopping, planning tourism promo-tion events, and developing regional brands. Achievements of these projects were shared and discussed with representatives on the local shopping streets ; this increased multicultural understanding between the students and the local people.
3-2 Exchange Students
As exchange students stay in Japan for merely six to twelve months, they have limited time to get involved in extracurricular activities. Nonetheless, some interesting projects have been conducted by Japanese colleges and universities that have given exchange students an opportunity to get involved in regional tourism promotion activities.
At Kagoshima Prefectural College, Chinese students have been collaborating with Japanese students on a Chinese-Japanese blog for tourism promotion in the Kagoshima prefecture and especially for its islands. Fukuda (2014) suggested that as Japan and China share a culture because of the Japanese use of Chinese Kanji charac-ters, creating tourism promotion buzzwords using Kanji could be effective in attracting Chinese tourists to the region. For example, since the word Kagoshima (鹿児島) includes the character for “island (島),” this could promote island sightseeing in Kagoshima prefecture among Chinese tourists, an activity that is not well-known to foreign tourists. At first, there were only a few number of visitors to the blog ; however, after the commence-ment of a regular flight service between Taiwan and Kagoshima, the number of visitors to the blog increased rapidly. Fukuda (2014) found that both international and domestic students learned a great deal through their collaboration on the aforementioned blog, significantly enhancing mutual understanding and cultural exchange.
At Hiroshima University, exchange students have been engaged in internship activities aimed at tourism promotion for foreign visitors and the development of a multicultural understanding of the region. In 2012, in-ternship activities shifted from being university-led to being student-driven, with the exchange students now be-ing engaged in activities such as tour coordinators, multicultural seminar lecturers, tourism plannbe-ing, and the conduct of marketing surveys for companies in the region (Tsunematsu, 2014 a ; Tsunematsu, 2014 b). Even though university students have little work experience, this student-driven internship project trains the students to be prepared to actively participate in the planning and operation of the entire program using problem-based learning activities and cross-cultural discussions.
3-3 Discussion
The Japanese university programs described above clearly demonstrate how educational programs for inter-national students can be improved from a student recruitment and regional contribution perspective.
The aforementioned programs provide international and domestic students with opportunities to improve their understanding of the regions and to increase multicultural understanding. Field studies in the region allow the students to understand the region more deeply ; domestic students’ regional pride can be enhanced and inter-national students can feel more accepted. Further, the experience of cooperating with both interinter-national and do-mestic students can increase mutual multicultural understanding. The program at Hiroshima University men-tioned above also provides internship opportunities in the tourism area for international students, which could be an advantage for the recruitment of more international students.
For future improvements in these educational programs, tourism promotion projects that include the appli-cation of IT knowledge could be more effective when developing appropriate positions to encourage interna-tional student involvement. As mentioned in section 2, internainterna-tional students are a prospective human resource, especially in the IT and tourism sectors (JETRO, 2016). However, tourism and IT need not be learned sepa-rately. Using IT for developing better services has become a popular tourism promotion issue. Tourism
promo-２１５ MURATA : Tourism Promotion Projects with International Students
tion projects that have attached IT training programs would assist in the human resource development of interna-tional students.
Toyo University is launching three new faculties and a new department in 2017 : the Faculty of Global and Regional Studies, Faculty of International Tourism Management, Faculty of Information Networking for Inno-vation and Design, and the Department of International Culture and Communication Studies in the Faculty of Letters. These new faculties and departments are recruiting international students who are expected to play im-portant roles in each specialized area. It would be a good opportunity for the students if the new faculties and the department could provide programs that combine both tourism promotion projects and IT training. In addition, the collaboration between the local governments and university should also be considered since the aforemen-tioned programs are the result of such collaborations. Such improvements in the educational programs would not only provide prospective human resources for the region but also contribute to the regions by providing op-portunities for multicultural understanding and international tourism promotion.
3. Conclusion
In this study, examples of tourism promotion programs for international students have been reviewed. Both regular international undergraduate and exchange students have been involved in the programs, which have also provided internship opportunities to exchange students. The programs described above also provide the regions with an opportunity for both multicultural understanding and tourism promotion. The importance of integrating tourism promotion and IT training has also been examined. Improvements in educational programs for interna-tional students could contribute to the regions to enhance tourism promotion and provide prospective human re-sources.
References
Fukuda, T. (2014).「日中両言語ブログによる鹿児島観光情報発信：『鹿児島ピカリン☆プロジェクト』中間報告書 ・最終報告書」鹿児島県立短期大学地域研究所叢書
Institute of Regional Vitalization Studies of Toyo University (2015) Newsletter No. 51. from http : //www.toyo.ac.jp/file/itakura/toyo_uni_51.pdf, accessed on 15th
, September 2016.
Japan Tourism Agency. (2011).Dispatch Business Supporter to Improve the Acceptance Environment for Foreign Traveler （「受入環境整備サポーター派遣事業」）.from
http : //www.mlit.go.jp/common/000144815.pdf, accessed on 15th
, September 2016.
JETRO. (2016).外国人労働者を巡る最近の動向について (Seminar material on international students recruitment seminar, 26th
April 2016, Tokyo). from
https : //www.jetro.go.jp/ext_images/jetro/activities/support/ryugakusei/pdf/report_20160426/session_first_1.pdf, ac-cessed on 15th
, September 2016.
Kato, H. (2016). International tourism activation evolve along with the international students in the Unzen spa area. Bulletin of ２１６ 東洋大学人間科学総合研究所紀要 第 号（ ）
Faculty of Contemporary Social Studies Nagasaki Wesleyan University, 14(1), pp.33-52.
Murata, Y. (2013). An attempt at cross-cultural exchange activity : Collaborative field study with international students. The
Bulletin of the Institute of Human Sciences, Toyo University, 15. pp.135-145.
Murata, Y. (2015). A collaborative exchange among international and Japanese students and an internet restaurant search serv-ice : a report of a participatory culinary event aiming to promote Washoku globally. The Bulletin of the Institute of
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Tsunematsu, N. (2014 a).交換留学生「地域国際観光プランナー」インターンシップ―新しい地域づくりと地域活性 化への留学生の支援―Journal of International Education, Hiroshima Univeristy. (18), 57-71.
Tsunematsu, N. (2014 b). Challenge of ‘Student-centered’ Internship for International Exchange Students in Cooperation with Local Society : Contribution to the Revitalization of Local Society and Empowerment of International Students. Ryugaku
Koryu, Vol.41, pp.10-21.
２１７ MURATA : Tourism Promotion Projects with International Students
【Abstract】
留学生の観光振興プロジェクト参加
村田 由美恵
＊ 日本で学ぶ留学生にとって、日本各地の観光振興プロジェクトに参加することは、地域をより深く知り異文化 交流の機会を得る上で、また地域の観光振興に貢献する上で、極めて意義深い経験である。本稿では、留学生が 観光振興プロジェクトに参加する例を報告し、大学で企画する留学生対象観光振興プロジェクトの望ましい姿に ついて議論する。特に、留学生が観光分野のモニター調査に協力し、外国人観光客増加を目的としたサービス向 上に貢献する例、また各大学で行われている留学生対象観光振興プロジェクトの例について報告し議論する。 キーワード：留学生、観光振興、外国人観光客、地域活性化、異文化交流This study focuses on tourism promotions that involved international students. Participation in tourism promotion activities enables international students to understand the region more deeply and contribute to the community activation of the region. Furthermore, the experience of cooperating with both international and domestic students can increase mutual multicultural understanding. This study examines tourism promotion activities focusing on international undergraduate and exchange pro-gram students at Japanese universities to promote further discussion on preferred educational propro-grams for international stu-dents of Toyo University. Specifically, it reports international stustu-dents’ involvement to monitor tourism service development and tourism promotion projects at Japanese universities.
Key words : international students, tourism promotion, inbound tourists, community activation, cultural exchange
＊ 人間科学総合研究所研究員・東洋大学国際地域学部
The Bulletin of the Institute of Human Sciences, Toyo University, No.19 ２１８
