A GOURMET TRIP: ONE DIRECTION OF DOMESTIC TOURISM IN JAPAN

Such culinary tourism also involves the exploration and enjoyment of the variety found in food in relation to regional cultural variations in Japan, especially where visitors from the la

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Address correspondence to Iis P Tussyadiah, Regional and Urban Planning Laboratory, Graduate School of Information Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan Tel: +81-22-795-7499; Fax: +81-22-795-7500; E-mail: iis@plan.civil.tohoku.ac.jp

A GOURMET TRIP: ONE DIRECTION OF DOMESTIC TOURISM IN JAPAN

IIS P TUSSYADIAH Regional and Urban Planning Laboratory, Tohoku University, Japan

Abstract: In addition to the tradition of visiting onsen (hot springs), one of the major purposes of

travel for leisure in Japan concerns the enjoyment of different cuisines Such culinary tourism also

involves the exploration and enjoyment of the variety found in food in relation to regional cultural

variations in Japan, especially where visitors from the large cities travel to rural areas Indeed,

culi-nary tourism has been a major factor in the development of some regions In this article, the pattern of

and trends in culinary tourism are described and explained.

Key words: Onsen; Regional cultural variations; Cuisine; Culinary tourism; Japan

food, while many of them are mixtures of onsen and gourmet trips offered by hotels or ryokans

(Japa-nese-style inns) In response to this trend, many des-tinations implement different strategies in relation

to their provision of food programs Some cities of-fer a tour route guide for difof-ferent types of local cuisine, some offer dinner cruise trips, and some build food theme parks where various types of food are cooked and served in front of the traveler’s eyes

Similar to the onsen trips, many travelers on

gour-met packages originate from big cities and visit ru-ral areas, exploring wide varieties of local food This trend suggests that culinary tourism can promote de-velopment in tourism in many regions Unlike the

onsen trips, culinary travel in Japan has not been

subject to much academic research This article at-tempts to make a descriptive analysis of the pattern

of culinary tourism in Japan and to present facts about the culture of dining out and food-motivated

Introduction

In addition to the tradition of visiting onsen (hot

springs), the most recent trend in tourism is

travel-ing to eat out In their research on the behavioral

attributes of Japanese travelers, Mok and Lam (2000)

found that type of dining facility is one of the main

factors—besides natural scenery, historical spots,

modern culture, and good shopping—influencing

Japanese leisure travelers’ choice of destination The

promotional campaigns of many gourmet spots and

travel packages in the media reflect the fact that

re-gional variations in cuisine strongly affect the

di-rection of domestic tourism in Japan There are many

food-related programs shown on television, as well

as dining and food trip guides on the Internet and in

travel magazines Tour operators and travel

agen-cies offer various packages of gurume tabi

(gour-met trips) Some of the packages are trips purely for

travel A detailed analysis of the trends in culinary

tourism will be a valuable resource for organizers

of tourism destinations to apply appropriate

strate-gies to cater to the trend The first major section

pro-vides an overview of theories of food and tourism,

recent leisure trends in Japan, as well as a

discus-sion on various factors that have had an effect on

Japanese food culture The subsequent section

fo-cuses on the determinants of the culinary tourism

format in Japan, and is followed by an analysis of

the Japanese dining out pattern and culinary travel

Data includes numerous secondary sources as well

as primary data collected by the author Destination

management and marketing strategies are the final

topic of discussion

Food and Tourism

Food culture is affected by, among other factors,

the natural geography, climate, religion, ethos,

so-cial groupings, and soso-cial status of a region A

re-gional or national cuisine and eating habits can be

viewed as a form of regional culture and as forming

a part of regional identity Thus, food is one of the

pull factors for tourists to visit particular

destina-tions (Au & Law, 2002) Travel to search for and

enjoy the consumption of food at different

geo-graphical locations is regarded as culinary tourism

People socially construct the world into the known

and the unknown, and self and other The choice of

traveling to distant places implies openness to what

is new (Long, 2004) Through tourism, people

sat-isfy their curiosity about otherness and expect to find

pleasure in exploring the unknown Away from

home, tourists experience food that is different from

that in their normal routine Mitchell and Hall (2003)

argue that food is usually treated as a functional

prod-uct when one is dining at home, but it has a deeper

symbolic meaning when dining out Within the

con-text of culinary tourism, tourists consume food at a

destination not merely to satisfy their physical

hun-ger Rather, tourists derive satisfaction from the

en-joyment of experiencing different kinds of food in

different modes and, further, possibly from the wish

to become more intimate with the local culture

Fur-thermore, Long (2004) argues that tourists explore

food new to them as an entry point to explore new

cultures and ways of being The definition of what,

how, and when to eat, how the food is cooked and

displayed, and under what social circumstances the food is to be eaten reflect a complex set of cultural, social, economic, and aesthetic factors Tourists’ satisfaction derived from food and eating at a desti-nation point might come from satisfying their sensi-bilities of taste, proportion, and appearance, as well

as satisfying their curiosity of what the local food and eating habits represent

Tourist Dining Behavior

The demographic, psychographic, and social char-acteristics of tourists highly influence the overall pattern of culinary tourism and of dining behavior Some studies, as mentioned by Au and Law (2002), show that gender, age, marital status, the existence

of children in the family, race, annual income, level

of education, and geographical locations partly de-termine dining out expenditure and frequency Tour-ists differ characteristically in their concepts of value for money, in their cognitions of satisfaction, and in their evaluation frameworks, including in all cases

in relation to food and dining (Nield, Kozak, & LeGrys, 2000) A tourist dining pattern is shown in Figure 1 Tourists’ dining can be divided into dining

at home (dining in), dining out at a restaurant nearby, and dining during vacation People dine out at a res-taurant near their home and/or afar in search of more variation in their dining styles and experience Din-ing out as a tourist is different from dinDin-ing out for other reasons Tourists also have a propensity to spend more than other restaurant consumers and it might be suggested that this is due to the experien-tial differences between tourist dining and other din-ing (Mitchell & Hall, 2003)

The dining variety of the “home” region, a tourist’s motivation, and their perceived risk influence all impact the level of involvement in the destination area The level of involvement in food and dining during vacation may vary from simply eating to pre-paring, cooking, and buying ingredients to take home

to try to consume at home, etc In turn, the level of involvement at the destination may enrich a tourist’s overall dining experience and influence dining hab-its

Japanese Food Culture

Ashkenazi and Jacob (2000) argue that major fac-tors affecting Japanese food culture are geography,

history, climate, religion, and external influences.

The geography of Japan is directly related to the

history of Japanese food culture, as is influence from

other countries Geographically Japan comprises

four major islands (Honshu, Kyushu, Hokkaido, and

Shikoku) and thousands of smaller ones Its easy

access by sea historically has been open to the

fa-cilitation of the foreign exchange of crops and

knowl-edge of different ways of living, enhanced in the

present age by the reality factors of progress towards

a global community evidenced in the ready

trans-mission of news and information, technological

in-novations such as the Internet, and the expanding

physical presence of worldwide chains of major

companies, including the catering and hospitality

sphere The climate in Japan varies from a

subtropi-cal one in the south to a subpolar one in the

north-ernmost part of the country The volcanic and

moun-tainous terrain hosts forests and heavy rainfall, much

of it from monsoons The abundance of flowing

water makes the hillsides and coastal agricultural

areas of Japan suitable especially for growing rice

Rice growing techniques were introduced to the

Japanese from China and Korea, and rice has

be-come the mainstay of the Japanese diet since

Fur-thermore, rice is now used more than just for human

food, but also for paper production, in brewing, for

fuel, building materials, and as animal feed

The influence of religion on Japanese food

cul-ture came from Shintô and Buddhism Shintô belief

involves naturalism and purity, and it emphasizes

that offerings (including food offerings) to God

(Kamisama) be gathered from nature This

empha-sis has created a style of Japanese cuisine in food type and presentation Buddhism, which came from India via China and Korea to Japan, became the of-ficial religion in the 6th century In Buddhism the preference is on vegetarian produce, and meat was officially forbidden to Japanese people for the next

1200 years This is the main reason that Japan has developed one of the most complex and elaborate vegetarian cuisines in the world Buddhism requires that meals feature five types of flavors: they should

be sweet, spicy, salty, bitter and sour; and the food should feature in five colors: yellow, black, white, green, and red

The most pervasive influence on Japanese cul-ture has been from China (Ashkenazi & Jacob, 2000) Japanese food culture that originated in China

includes the foodstuffs, condiments (shoyu/soy sauce, miso/bean paste, etc.), and eating utensils

(chopsticks and bowl) Other influences came from Korea and Western countries The Portuguese intro-duced fried foods, such as those involved in tempura (deep batter frying) The Spanish introduced baked

cakes known as kasutera Western traders also

brought tobacco, sugar, sweet potatoes, and corn After the Edo period, when Japan opened to the rest of the world, the Japanese started to make many changes in their food habits and tried to assimilate some Western styles and types of food It was in the New Year feast of 1872 staged by the New Emperor

Figure 1 Tourists’ dining patterns.



  

  

  

  

  



  

 

of Meiji that, for the first time in over 1,000 years,

people publicly ate meat Some meat dishes, as well

as karê-raisu (from a southern Indian vegetarian stew

called curry) and tonkatsu, were introduced and

adopted from the West at that time In the post-war

era, the influence continued with the introduction of

different Western foodstuffs, ways of cooking, ways

of preparing, ways of eating and, most recently, with

the presence of Western fast-food corporations

An-other important factor shaping Japanese food culture

nowadays is the fact that there is a clear shift in

Japa-nese food consumption and preferences The dining

culture shifts from hôshoku to hôshoku, both

pro-nounced the same but written with different

charac-ters The former literally means gluttony or satiation,

reflecting the consumption of food as a means to

sur-vive, while the latter, which literally means service,

associates the consumption of food with ease and

of-ten luxury The long-term boom in the Japanese

economy has resulted in bringing prosperity to most

of its population Japanese people are purchasers of

many luxuries, including in the sphere of food People

go out to eat at Western, Chinese, Japanese, or other

ethnic restaurants, there being a demand for more

variety and authenticity in good food and drink

Recent Trends in Leisure

The former Japanese view of work and leisure as

stated by Kelly (1991) is that “growing up Japanese

meant becoming motivated to achieve long-term

goals rather than satisfy immediate pleasures” (p

400) During the recent economic recession, more

people have tended to seek and enjoy leisure time

People who consider leisure to be more important

than work outnumber those who make work the

fo-cus of their lives More and more Japanese consider

leisure as being what makes life worthwhile (Seya,

2003), and they seek more enjoyment outside their

work (Ishimori, 2004) The Cabinet Office

(Naikakufu) conducted a public opinion survey

con-cerning priorities in life The results indicate that

from time to time, leisure and leisure activities are a

high priority for most Japanese Responding to the

question of what they will focus on in their future

life, 26.9% answered, “Preparing for the future with

savings and investments,” 56.4% answered, “To

en-joy an enriched life every day,” and 14.9% answered,

“Cannot say” (Seya, 2003, p 244)

The Leisure Development Research Center, which

is located in the Japan Productivity Center for Socio-Economic Development (JPC-SED), regularly moni-tors people’s participation in 91 leisure activities,

and has published a White Paper on Leisure (Rejâ

Hakusho) every year since 1977 The most popular

leisure activities have changed little from year to year Figure 2 shows the popular leisure activities in

1998 and 2002, as sourced from the 1999 and 2003 White Paper on Leisure (Seya, 2003), on the basis

of a multiple-response survey Dining out with fam-ily or friends and domestic travel during holidays seems to be firmly established as Japanese ways of spending leisure time

According to the 1999 White Paper on leisure, spending on leisure activities (i.e., expenses for din-ing out, buydin-ing durable goods, culture and entertain-ment, sports, and traveling) was ¥80.17 trillion (US$636 billion) in 1998 The number of domestic sightseeing trips involving overnight stays during

1998 was estimated at about 205 million, or an aver-age of 1.6 trips per person, almost the same as in the previous year Such trips are estimated to have cost a total of ¥8.7 trillion (US$69 billion), or about ¥68,600 (US$544) per person In 2002, spending for overseas travel was estimated at an average of ¥169,610 (US$1,288) per trip or ¥305,000 ($US 2,316) per person per year, while spending for domestic travel was ¥29,590 ($US224) per trip or ¥100,600 ($US764) per person per year The average of overseas travel in

2002 was estimated at 1.9 trips per person, while do-mestic travel was 3 trips per person

The Determinants of Japanese Culinary Tourism What attracts people to search for food in a par-ticular place can be that of the attraction of the food itself: ingredients, presentations, healthiness, fresh-ness, etc., and the association of the food with a place

of culture In Japan, there are two factors that have a strong role in determining the culinary tourism

pat-tern: the meibutsu culture and the seasonal varia-tions The meibutsu culture is the idea of famous

things being associated with a local place and cul-ture When they are at a particular location, tourists usually consider that they are consuming its

meibutsu Seasonal variation is the factor that makes

potential tourists consider which dishes are best to eat and where they might find such dishes

The Role of Meibutsu

In the realm of tourism, Japan has a culture of

searching meibutsu, translated literally as the famous

things/products of a location The idea of meibutsu

derived from the religious nature of tourist travel

(Ashkenazi & Jacob, 2000), such as water from holy

springs or fruit from particular mountains, etc

Nowadays, meibutsu mostly involves the form of

food and foodstuffs: special fish from local waters,

special crops from local farms, or a special cuisine

prepared using a unique local technique It also

of-ten includes local features and is presented as a form

of support for local festivals or other events

The culture of meibutsu reflects an association of

local features to Japanese-ness, culturally as well as

regionally Therefore, the creation, regeneration, or

sale of meibutsu involves raising the importance of

local feelings and local pride With their meibutsu,

localities became equivalent to other places in

Ja-pan The creation of meibutsu is also important in

relation to tourist destination choice, as it generates publicity: “as tourism became more and more a popular phenomenon, and as Japanese started ex-ploring their country to a greater extent, there was more demand for specific local products which would provide the purchasing traveler with a bona

fide identification that he had been there” (Ashkenazi

& Jacob, 2000, p 175) However, the postal system nowadays reduces the importance of the original locality of a product from previously, as people can order many local special products by post as well as buy them from the nearest department store Never-theless, as the media also cultivates this, people

be-lieve that a meibutsu is best consumed/enjoyed in

its original place It is believed that the most

deli-cious way to eat kegani (hairy crab) is going to

Hokkaido where it comes from and that the taste and the feeling from eating it are incomparable with

eating ordered kegani at home This belief leads to a Figure 2. Popular leisure activities in Japan Source: (Seya, 2003).

Popular Leisure Activities 1998 and 2002

30.7 36.6 43.4 38.3 28.4 43.4 31.6 41.7 40.6 43.4 56.9 61.2 62.7 71.6

34.6 35.5 37.9 38 40.8 42.7 42.3 44.4 45 47.9 49.5 59.4 63.1 77.5

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 Physical exercise (without equipment)

Amusement parks

Bars Gardening Movies Zoos, museums, etc.

PC (Games, Communication) Listening to music Lotteries Videos Karaoke Driving Domestic travel Dining out

Number of Participants (in millions)

2002 1998

motive to travel to be in the place of origin to enjoy

the desired meibutsu.

Seasonal Variations

Japanese customs are very sensitive to seasonal

change In seasonal change, one can immediately

see changes in the colors of street decorations as

well as in the clothes people wear As the parades

and festivals of the changing seasons take place in

different locations, there are also changes in seasonal

food Japanese traditional culture is often described

as a seasonal culture, for an appreciation of season

is highly valued People in general, as well as the

gourmand and restaurateurs, make dishes with the

ingredients and presentation that meet the shun: the

peak of perfection The ingredients and

presenta-tion of every dish in Japan, whether an actual

prod-uct or in symbolic form, have to be according to

season This aspect of food culture is a form of

com-munication and association with nature in that

eat-ing the eat-ingredients at the shun is believed to be good

for health

This seasonal change factor also has an

impor-tant influence on culinary travel Local places,

ryokans and restaurants, adjust the main dishes

of-fered to tourists to match the shun People also

choose to travel to places where their food is served

best to the seasonal changes As winter comes, people

travel to places with nabe ryôri (pot dishes), which

is believed to be good to warm up the body

The Forms of Japanese Culinary Tourism

As an attempt to analyze culinary tourism in

Ja-pan, this article describes three major patterns of

dining out in Japanese society and of gourmet trips

undertaken The first analysis concentrates on the

place and the frequency of dining out, and kind of

food or cuisine Japanese consume when dining out

The second analysis concentrates on the gourmet

trip product offered by travel agents and tour

opera-tors throughout the year The third analysis

concen-trates on the destination management and

market-ing of culinary tourism

Japanese Dining-Out Patterns

The move of Japanese society into a

consumer-oriented economy and the emergence of two-carrier

households have created a change in Japanese food consumption patterns The change is marked by an increase in the consumption of prepared/convenient food and by dining out Convenience food is usually

in the form of demae (delivered food) or mochikaeriv

(takeaway) According to data from the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and

Tele-communication/sômushô (Seya, 2003, p 178), the

ratio of dining out in a salaried worker’s household food expenditures is 19.4% in 2002 [at the value of

¥14,223 ($US108) a month], compared with only 7.2% in 1965 (at the value of ¥1,288 a month) Places for dining in Japan vary from high-class

restaurants such as ryôtei (expensive restaurant

serv-ing Japanese cuisine), Chinese culinary delights and

French haute cuisine, to ryôriya (cook shops) and

many unique low-cost dining stalls High-class res-taurants can easily be found in the best hotels or in fashionable city districts More affordable restau-rants flourish on the dining floors of department stores and in the underground malls of railway

sta-tions A Ryôriya usually serves specialized dishes; examples of ryôriya dishes are tempura-ya and

ramen-ya Some other forms of dining-out are in

bars, izakaya (Japanese drinking places that also serve a wide variety of food), street side yatai (food stalls), Kaitenzushi (running sushi) where

custom-ers sit at a round counter and choose low-priced sushi

on a circling conveyor belt, and bentô (lunch box)

shops Noodle stands, coffee shops, fast-food out-lets, and vending machines can be found in train stations or urban shopping centers, providing a va-riety of food and drink at very low cost

One leading web guide on Japan (www.japan-guide.com) organized a survey on dining out in Au-gust 2001 The subjects were 726 Japanese people who live in Japan (The Japan Guide, 2001) How-ever, as about 75% of the subjects were between 20 and 40 years old, the survey is not a valid measure

of the whole Japanese population The survey re-sults show that most subjects (55%) go out for din-ner between two and eight times per month The average spending is ¥2,275 per dinner and person Most (60%) dine out with friends, some (44%) dine out with the family, and some (13%) with cowork-ers The most popular places for dinner are family

restaurants (48%) and izakaya (44%), both of which

serve a wide variety of food and dishes The rankings

of different categories of restaurants are as follows:

Italian (33%), fast food (30%), Korean BBQ (30%),

noodle (27%), Chinese (24%), and sushi (21%)

Gourmet Trip Packages

Besides dining out in nearby restaurants, an

im-portant form of culinary tourism in Japan is

gour-met-themed package trips from one area to another,

available as day-trip and overnight-trip packages

The gourmet trip package is gaining popularity in

Japan In many travel brochures, food is presented

as the main attraction and destination image Most

gourmet day-trip packages (higaeri puran) are lunch

plans (higaeri chûshoku puran) offered by tour

op-erators, hotels and ryokan, and other operators such

as Japan Railway (JR) and Japan Post Lunch

pack-ages offered by hotel and ryokan are combined with

the use of guest rooms and onsen Some of the

pack-ages are as follows:

• In-Room Dining Package (Oheyashoku Puran).

The guest can have lunch at one guest room in

ryokan; the guest room is utilized only for lunch;

• Lunch and Guestroom Package (Ranchi &

Kyakushitsu Riyô Puran) The guest can have

lunch at one guest room in ryokan, and use the

room to relax and have a little chat with family

or friends after lunch;

• Gourmet and Onsen Package (Gurume & Onsen

Riyô Puran) After lunch, the guest can use the

onsen of the hotel or ryokan Within this

pack-age, the lunch can be served either in the guest

room (ryokan), or in the restaurant (hotel or

ryokan) Some hotels also serve buffet lunch.

Packages offered by JR are usually in the form of

train tickets plus gourmet vouchers and other

ac-tivities (higaeri gurume chiketto) Some forms of

these are:

• Gourmet Ticket (gurume chiketto) Within this

package, the traveler gets a return ticket with a

dining voucher;

• Gourmet Ticket plus Hot Spa (gurume chiketto

purasu onsen) Within this package, the

trav-eler gets a return ticket, a dining voucher, and a

ticket to use the hot baths;

• Gourmet Ticket plus Sightseeing Ticket

(gurume chiketto purasu kenbutsu) Within this

package, the traveler gets a return ticket, a din-ing voucher, and entry tickets to some sightseeing spots at the destination Travelers usually can decide their own schedule by ad-justing the departure and return times so that they have free time in between to enjoy other activities

There are many other packages offered,

combin-ing restaurants, hotels, ryokans, hot baths, and other

sightseeing spots, with different modes of transpor-tation, such as bus trips and rental car packages Although there are not as many as lunch trips, there are also some forms of dinner trips offered One of the popular trips for dinner is a cruise ship in the evening that enables diners to enjoy the city lights from the water

Gourmet overnight trip packages are basically

trips to stay in certain hotels or ryokans, which

uti-lize local cuisine, ingredients and foodstuffs, cook-ing styles, food displays, and unique eatcook-ing envi-ronments as their main attractions Such a package comprises usually a mixture of cuisine and the use

of other hotel facilities A standard breakfast is served

in hotels, but what makes the gourmet overnight trip special is the dinner The term “gourmet” in most overnight trips refers to dinner and, in the day trip,

to lunch One example of popular packages is Ajiwai

no yado (flavor lodging), operated by Ace JTB (the

Japan Travel Bureau) The package arranges travel from the Tokyo area to 10 different prefectures with

more than 50 hotels and ryokans All hotels and

ryokans serving the Ajiwai no yado package offer

different kinds of cuisine, all seasonally specific

Other packages have similar themes, such as Bimi

no yado (delicacy lodging), Mikaku puran (palate

plans), and Ryôri jiman no yado (cuisine lodging).

To analyze the pattern of Japanese gourmet over-night trips, a total sample of 406 packages, consist-ing of 131 day trips (32.27%) and 275 overnight trips (67.73%), were taken from the travel brochures available in several major cities in Japan: Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Kanazawa, Fukuoka, and Sendai The collected data include travel cost, duration, main food/menu, and other facilities offered in the pack-ages The chi-square test was applied to pairs of data category, and the result shows that the hypotheses that all data are independent can be rejected The cost of a gourmet day-trip package ranges from

¥3,300 to ¥14,900 ($US136) Around 83.21% of the

samples cost less than ¥10,000 ($US91), while the

rest (16.79%) cost from ¥10,000 ($US91) to ¥14,900

($US136) The cheapest day-trip package is a trip

called Gourmet Hakata, from Hakata Station to

Gourmet City, both in Fukuoka, while the most

ex-pensive is a higaeri asobase trip from Tokyo to one

ryokan in the Kansai Area The cost of an overnight

trip (based on two-person occupancy in the low

sea-son) ranges from ¥6,900 ($US63) to ¥42,000 ($381)

Most of the packages (34.90%) cost from ¥15,000

($US136) to ¥20,000 ($US182) The distances

be-tween origin and destination result in some

differ-ences in trip duration and means of transportation,

which eventually influence the cost of a trip

The cheapest overnight trip is a Mikaku puran

from Sendai City to a ryokan in Matsushima Beach.

In the category of overnight trip within one area, the

most expensive package is a Bijin kamameshi ryôri

trip, from Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture to Niigata

Prefecture, both in Tohoku Area The package is a

trip to enjoy kamameshi (rice and other ingredients

cooked in soup stock inside a pot/kettle) served by a

beautiful woman in traditional dress and who also

performs local traditional art while accompanying

the guest during the meal In the category of

long-distance trips, a 2-night, 3-day trip from the Tokyo

area to Hokkaido costs around ¥35,000 (US$318)

in the low season and ¥52,000 ($473) in the high

season

Another important finding from this sample is the

food category served by the destination eatery to

travelers Around 96% of the overnight trip

pack-ages serve washoku (Japanese style food) for

din-ner, only 1.8% serve yoshoku (Western style food),

and 2.2% serve chûshoku (Chinese style food) In

comparison with dinner, the breakfast has more

yoshoku (10.6%), and in some hotels/ryokans

(20.8%), the guest could even choose between

washoku and yoshoku for their breakfast The

din-ner, especially washoku, is usually served inside the

guest room kaiseki (multi-course meal) style, while

the breakfast is often served either in the restaurant

or dining hall baikingu (buffet) style Destinations

that offer more variation in the food category are

Yokohama and Tokyo The other parts of the

coun-try only offer washoku as tourist attractions.

From the sample, it is apparent that Japanese

people travel to search for something “Japanese,” a

reflection of washoku culture Ashkenazi and Jacob

(2000) pointed out some important factors in the

creation of the washoku culture The first is the

natu-ral food movement, a growing awareness of a need

to shift from consuming “risky” industrialized food

to more “healthy” natural food Local, natural food

is believed to be more “safe” because of its simplic-ity and authenticsimplic-ity (Scarpato & Daniele, 2003) The second is that Japanese food incorporates a symbol

to differentiate Nihonjin-ron (this term refers to the

Japanese-ness of things, values, customs, and other)

from other-ron In this way the philosophy of

Nihonjin-ron—basically a belief that Japan is unique,

special, and incomparable—has a strong influence

on Japanese food preferences, particularly in rela-tion to special events and occasions including trav-eling

Destination Management and Marketing Strategies

Creating a local cuisine and making it a pull fac-tor for a particular location can be one effective strat-egy for tourism development Some regions in Ja-pan adopt a particular food as their icon and some others take the availability of good food as their icon One example of the second category is Yamagata

Prefecture, with its Oishii Yamagata (Delicious

Yamagata) slogan As many regions are aware of the importance of culinary tourism to promote their area, they apply different strategies to promote their localities to attract more visitors Some of the strat-egies involve organizing food festivals or food events, creating gourmet zones or eating districts, and building food theme parks

Many regions in Japan organize food festivals often called “Foodpia,” short for Food Utopia One

of them is “Foodpia Kanazawa,” a festival held ev-ery February in Ishikawa Prefecture Several food-related events organized in the prefecture give visi-tors opportunities to taste various local foods, brewed drinks, and confectionary Some prefectures have other forms of food festivals; one example is the

Heisei Nabe Gassen (Pot Food Contest), organized

in Tendo City, Yamagata Prefecture, every January

In the festivals, the fastest to sell 100 pots of their

original Nabe cuisine wins the contest This form of

festival can also attract many visitors simply to taste the food and enjoy the competition

Another popular concept for food tourism in

Ja-pan is the booming food theme park development

Food theme parks are usually located indoors and

decorated with a specific epoch or fantasy theme

Food theme parks usually specialize in one type of

food or dish, cooked by a reputable restaurant or

chef, and, in contrast to the gourmet trip to hotels or

ryokans, the food theme parks serve more foreign

food or adaptations The first food theme park in

Japan was the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum

(founded in 1994), where visitors can try out some

of the most popular varieties of ramen at one

loca-tion As featured frequently in the media, it attracts

between 100,000 and 150,000 visitors each month

(The Japan Information Network, 2003) Examples

of other specialized food theme parks are the

Yokohama Curry Museum (specializing in curry) in

Yokohama, the Ikebukuro Gyoza Stadium

(special-izing in gyoza/dumplings stuffed with minced pork

and vegetables) in Tokyo, Shimizu Sushi Museum

(specializing in sushi) in Shizuoka Prefecture, Ramen

Stadium (specializing in ramen) in Fukuoka

Prefec-ture, Ice Cream City (specializing in ice cream) in

Tokyo, Jiyugaoka Sweet Forest (specializing in

sweets) in Tokyo, and Yokohama Daisekai

(special-izing in Chinese Food) in Yokohama Chinatown The

other parks have more varieties of dishes, including

the Naniwa Kuishinbo Yokocho (Osaka Eater’s

Al-ley), the first food theme park in the Kansai region,

and Otaru Unga Shokudo (Otaru Canal Cafeteria)

in Hokkaido Prefecture

Osaka has long been acknowledged as Japan’s

culinary Mecca (the Japan National Tourism

Orga-nization, 2003), but now faces challenges from other

cities and regions Tohoku region plans to become

Japan’s Foodpia, for it has the best apples in Japan,

delicious and tender Yonezawa Beef, oysters the size

of a man’s palm, Eniwa udon noodles, and many

other delicacies

The Markets These gourmet day-trip and

over-night trip packages are designed to attract general

visitors Some of them focus on families or group

of friends, as the hotels and ryokans also provide

rooms to relax and chat A particular target market

exists in some silver plan shiruba puran trips (i.e.,

for groups of senior travelers, and graduation trips)

and sotsugyôshiki puran trips (i.e., for fresh

gradu-ates from junior high schools, high schools, and

universities) The silver plan usually focuses on healthy food, healthy baths, and relaxing surround-ings The graduation plan offers facilities to orga-nize graduation parties and other facilities for younger visitors, such as karaoke rooms and game centers Some food theme parks also try to attract a

particular gender The Jiyugaoka Sweet Forest, which

offers a huge variety of sweets and confectionaries, focuses on attracting women, as the passion for sweets usually involves women rather than men in Japan

The Media The media play a very strong role in

the direction of Japanese culinary tourism Travel-ers refer to the media listings when choosing desti-nations and food There are three main references used by travelers in Japan, beside travel brochures: travel magazines, television programs, and the Internet Travel magazines are available in book-stores conveniently located in shopping centers and train stations A magazine usually focuses on one particular area or tourism spot, giving detailed in-formation about its attractions, best hotels, best res-taurants, prices, transportation, etc A gourmet travel magazine provides a wide choice of a particular food category at a particular location

Japan also presents a remarkable number of food-related programs on television Food programs in-cluding aspects of everyday life, social history, and cultural values are aired year-round on every chan-nel throughout the broadcasting day (Holden, 1999) Food also appears in travel programs (cruises, ad-ventures, cultural explorations, etc.), and there are features on travel locations, hotels, and restaurants

in numerous programs (talk shows, quizzes, etc.) that usually include highly motivating introductions

play-ing to the oishii (delicious) culture of Japan.

Internet access, including access to leisure and travel-related websites, is increasing during holidays such as Golden Week and New Year Sugimoto (2003) reported on the number of visitors to two culinary-related websites, “Yahoo! Gurume” (gourmet.yahoo.co.jp) and “Gurunabi” (gnavi.co.jp), during New Year 2003, December 2002, and Janu-ary 2003 “Yahoo! Gurume” was visited by 1.078 million people in December 2002 and 1.094 million people in January 2003, while “Gurunabi” was vis-ited by 895,000 and 882,000 people in December

2002 and January 2003 respectively “Yahoo!

Gurume” received 18.53 million page views (about

6.5 minutes per person per visit), while “Gurunabi”

had 25.5 million page views (about 9.5 minutes per

person per visit) Numerous people accessed the

gourmet websites, as well as other leisure

informa-tion websites, during Golden Week 2003

Accord-ing to Hagiwara (2003), the number of visitors to

travel and leisure information websites increased

during Golden Week 2003 (compared to the period

of April 21 to April 27 and of April 28 to May 4)

Some of the websites are “Yahoo! Eiga”

(movies.yahoo.co.jp), “Yahoo! Chizu”

(map.yahoo.co.jp), “Yahoo! Gurume”

(gourmet.yahoo.co.jp), “Yahoo! Rosen”

(transit.yahoo.co.jp), “Pia” (pia.co.jp), “Walker Plus”

(walkerplus.com), “Gurunabi” (gnavi.co.jp), and

“Nihon Dôro Kôtsû Sentâ” (jartic.or.jp) The

differ-ent contdiffer-ents of each site reflect the information

needed to decide where and how to travel

Conclusion More and more Japanese consider leisure to be

an increasingly important factor in their lives and

they seek more enjoyment outside work Dining out

and domestic travel are two of the most popular

lei-surelated activities carried out by Japanese in

re-cent years People dine out more frequently

nowa-days, mostly in family restaurants or izakaya, eating

places that offer more variety in food In search of

greater variety, people also travel to other areas to

try out good food and drink This trend shows that

cuisine is an important factor in Japanese domestic

tourism

In culinary tourism, hotels, restaurants, and chefs

have become designers of many travel packages The

media, as opinion mediators and influencers, present

relaxing food trips and unique food experiences in

such ways that culinary tourism is highly promoted

Since accurate data on domestic tourism is difficult

to find, this article cannot present the proportion of

all Japanese tourists who travel primarily for food

in relation to tourists regarding food as secondary

or minor motives As an attempt to analyze the

de-mand for culinary tourism, this article tries to

ana-lyze it from the supply side, presenting trends in

culinary tourism provision in Japan

Gourmet trip packages, day trips, and overnight

trips usually originate from big cities and the

desti-nations are often suburban areas, places that offer

an authentic or natural feeling to tourists Rest,

re-laxation, and natural affinity are the themes of most packages Local traditional food as a pull factor to attract many visitors can be a vehicle for tourism development in suburban areas On the other hand, the big cities have advantages in attracting visitors

as they can offer wider varieties of food and eating places The gourmet districts, eating zones, and food theme parks are some of the facilities offered by big cities to attract visitors A key difference in offer-ings between the gourmet trip packages and gour-met districts exists in relation to the types of food they offer to visitors Nearly all gourmet trip

pack-ages offer only washoku cuisine as the main menu,

while most of the gourmet districts offer various kinds of food, including food adopted and, perhaps, adapted from overseas

The washoku culture that exists in gourmet trip

packages indicates that Japanese tourists are in search of authenticity in the places they go to, seek-ing good traditional food and local cuisine that rep-resent their varied food culture This fact confirms the finding of most studies that Japanese tourists are more safety conscious (risk avoiders) than other tour-ists (Mok & Lam, 2000) Another explanation of the

washoku search and consumption is that traditional

local food can generate pride and satisfaction in most Japanese in relation to their perceived unique cul-ture

Biographical Note Iis P Tussyadiah is a Ph.D candidate in the Regional and Urban Planning Laboratory in the Graduate School of Infor-mation Sciences at Tohoku University in Japan Her research interests focus on destination choice, tourism economics, tourists’ psychology, culture tourism, and special interest tourism.

References

Ashkenazi, M., & Jacob, J (2000) The essence of Japanese

cuisine: An essay of food and culture Philadelphia:

Uni-versity of Pennsylvania Press.

Au, N., & Law, R (2002) Categorical classification of

tour-ism dining Annals of Tourtour-ism Research, 29(3), 819–833 Hagiwara, M (2003) Tegaru na rejâ jôhô saito ga nigiwatta

kotoshi no GW [This Year Golden Week (GW) when the

Easy Leisure Information Sites are Crowded] [On-line] Available: http://japan.internet.com/atlas/20030514/ print1.html