Issue 162 – November 2022

NEWSLETTER_ C O N T E N T S _Strengthening Sister City Ties through the Shoyoen(PageWelcome to Minokamo City

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JETAA Oceania Conference in Brisbane

2Local Government NSW (LGNSW) Annual

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Conference 2022
The Inbound Tourism Promotion Webinar

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From the Executive Directoｒ

4-5Japanese Garden
Minokamo in Gifu and Dubbo in NSW began their sister city
exchange after signing a sister city agreement in 1989. In
November 2002, the Shoyoen Japanese Garden and Jurian

Ceremonial Tea House were built on a 10ha area of landin Dubbo. Through the Minokamo International Exchange
Association, citizen volunteers such as craftspersons andlandscapers took part in designing the Japanese garden
and the building of the garden was completed with thesupport of Dubbo Regional Council.
Just like the saying “As Spring arrives and the Cherry
blossoms bloom, the friendship and understanding
between us further”, the friendship between thetwo cities has grown over the past 30 years.
Shoyoen is loved by the locals in Dubbo and is now
an impressive garden that transmits Japaneseculture and is a place of recreation for locals. With
Dubbo’s desire that Shoyoen “is to not just be ofJapanese style, but an authentic Japanese garden”,since 2008, Minokamo has been sending alandscaper to Dubbo every year to manage thegarden and provide guidance on pruning.
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However, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, it had
been two years that the student exchange program, as well as thelandscaper dispatch program between the two cities, could not goahead. The landscaper dispatch program resumed in September thisyear. With a two-year gap since the last landscaper was dispatched,this year’s landscaper was anxious due to the long gap but wasimpressed by how extremely well-maintained Shoyoen is after
arriving at the garden. According to the landscaper, “Our efforts inmaintaining and managing the garden are minimal. The upkeeping of
this impressive Japanese garden is all because of the efforts of thestaff at Dubbo Regional Council and the volunteers who continued
pruning and managing the plants in the garden.”Currently, Shoyoen is a popular spot amongst Dubbo locals and isoften used as a place for weddings, events, tea gatherings and otherday-to-day social gatherings.
On 19 November, accepting Dubbo Regional Council’s invitation to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the opening ofShoyoen, a delegation of approximately 20 from Minokamo City visited Dubbo to celebrate alongside Dubbo locals.
Minokamo City is excited to see the resumption of people-to-people interactions between the two cities.

On 8 and 9 October, representatives from all JETAA chapters in the Oceania region assembled in Brisbane to attend
the Oceania Conference, hosted by JETAA QLD this year. The conference is held annually for all JETAA chapters inOceania to update one another on their chapter’s recent activities and share ideas and discuss issues they may have.
This year’s conference was the first in person event inthree years since the outbreak of COVID-19. In addition
to JETAA chapters in Australia and New Zealand, theconference was also attended by the Singapore
Country Representative.
The representatives from each chapter presented theirrecent activities and plans for the future. Through thediscussions during the conference, the Oceania JETAA
chapters strengthened their ties and gained new
insight and ideas to enrich their future activities. We
believe JETAA will play an increasingly important role
as a bridge between Japan and the rest of the world on a grassroots level.
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The Local Government NSW’s Annual Conference
was held from 23 to 25 October in Hunter Valley
and was attended by mayors, councillors andrelevant local government officials from all aroundthe state.
The conference featured presentations andworkshops delivered by prime ministers of thestate government and experts. Disaster recovery
was a topic of high interest as NSW has been
suffering from natural disasters including floodingin recent years. The conference also had a bootharea that provided participating organisations withpromotional opportunities and all conference attendees with networking opportunities. More than 900 participants
gathered from all over Australia to attend this invaluable event.
CLAIR Sydney ran a booth to distribute information on our recent activities and promote various Japanese tourist
destinations and upcoming notable sports events in Japan.
We are extremely pleased to meet many conference attendees
who visited our booth to learn about CLAIR Sydney and Japanese
local governments. Many mayors and councillors whose councils
have sister city relationships with Japanese local governments
also kindly visited our booth. Through the opportunities provided
by the conference, CLAIR Sydney was able to network with many
local governments in Australia.
We will continue to learn and research the current challenges andbest practices of Australian local governments, strengthen ourrelationships with local governments in Australia and promote
Japan to Australians.

On 24 October, CLAIR Sydney held the first session of the Inbound Tourism Promotion Webinar series for staff ofJapanese local governments and other relevant organisations. This webinar aims to promote inbound tourism to Japan
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after the lifting of border restrictions to Japan from 11October. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the numberof Australian travellers to Japan had been steadily
increasing and many new direct flight routes between
Australia and Japan were being launched. Moreover,Australians’ average per-person tourist spending was
the largest in Japan and the number of tourists from
Australia to Japan ranked 7th out of all international
tourists. Therefore, Australia is an important country for Japan’s inbound tourism industry.
In the webinar session, Ms Yoko Tanaka, Executive
Director of the Japan National Tourism Organization’s
Sydney office delivered a presentation on the pasttrends and future predictions in Australian travellers toJapan and effective inbound tourism promotion contentfor the Australian market. After that, Mr Manya Hiraki,
Executive Director of CLAIR Sydney introduced ourinbound tourism promotion activities and shared thefeedback we received from visitors to our booth at tourism promotion events we participate in in Australia.
CLAIR Sydney will continue to support Japanese local government organisations' inbound tourism promotion.

－School Exchange－As I have written previously, there are many sister city relationships between Australia/New Zealand and Japan. There
are many reasons for municipalities or states/prefectures to conclude sister city or state relationships, one of which is
the result of school exchange between the schools in the two government areas. This being said, there are also somemunicipalities and states/prefectures in Australia/New Zealand and Japan that conduct school-to-school exchange even
if they do not have a sister city/state relationship. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many schools changed their modeof exchange and conducted their exchange activities online.
Here is an interesting survey result. According to a survey we did at the end of last year, when compared to other sister
city/state relationships around the world, there is a much larger percentage of student exchange through sister
city/state activities between Australia and Japan.
Only 39% of Japan’s overall sister city/state activities are student exchange-related activities with countries around theworld. If we compare this to Japan’s exchange activities with Australia, we can see a big jump to 55%.

Page 4I think there are several reasons for this high rate of student exchange between Australia and Japan. Firstly, Japaneseis one of the most popular second languages in Australia and many students learn Japanese at school. On the otherhand, there is a high demand amongst students in Japan to learn English. Also, there are minimal time differences
between Australia and Japan, which allows students and teaching staff to easily take part in online exchange during
regular school hours.
I believe school exchange is a great way to learn about the culture and other aspects of other countries. I wish I had
experienced school exchange when I was a student.
Many schools in Japan wish to conduct school exchange with schools in Australia/New Zealand. If you are interested,
please click on the link below.
http://www.jlgc.org.au/ja/international-exchange-2/sister-school-exchange/

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