enhancing the provision of information.

For the guides who provide charged interpretation and information services to foreign tourists, in order to improve the reception quality to foreign tourists and contribute to international tourism promotion, on the basis of the “Act on Tour Guide-Interpreters”, the Tour Guide-Interpreter Examination has been conducted, and the number of registered Tour Guide-Interpreters was 13,530 as of April 2009. In addition, in order to develop the reception environment that is ready for an age with 30 million foreign tourists, the appropriateness of the Tour Guide-Interpreter System has been under review since June of that year. Moreover, it is desirable that various activities of promotion of visits to Japan are widened from the setting up of measures relating to the reception system for foreign tourists and endowing an official appreciation for the efforts on advertising Japan’s attractiveness to foreigners. To further promote visits to Japan to foreign tourists, the Minister of MLIT appointed 63 people who had taken excellent measures and could act as role models for other related parties as “YÕKOSO ! JAPAN Ambassadors” until the end of December that year.

Furthermore, based on the “Act on Hotel Development for International Tourism”, the registration of hotels and hostels that are suitable for foreign tourists is carried out from the viewpoints of both hard and soft aspects. As of December of that year, 1,070 hotels and 1,848 hostels had been registered.

### 4. Improvement of Conditions for Promoting Tourism

## (1) Promoting holiday acquisition and division

Regarding the division of holiday acquisition described in the “New Development Strategy” (Basic Policy), the symposium was held on 26 $ ^{th} $ February 2010 that acts as a place of challenges for a wider field. As well as continuing popularization and awareness enhancement, MLIT carried out an investigation into citizens’ awareness of the division of holiday acquisition and golden week/summer holidays and the economic effects induced by travel in silver week, September 2009.

In addition, the working team for division of holiday peak times of the Headquarters of Tourism Nation Promotion is reviewing the productivity improvement of the tourism industry resulting from demand equalization and stabilization of employment, as well as specific policies and measures taken by the whole government.

## (2) Promotion of tourism based on the view of universal design

In order to promote tourism based on the view of universal design, a checklist was made for the stage of designing and developing travel products that senior citizens and disabled persons can easily participate in.

## (3) Measures towards consumer protection for dealing with environmental changes in travel transactions

In the context of accumulated problems related to safe, secure and fair transactions for consumers, the Consumer Affairs Agency was set up in September 2009. The Japan Tourism Agency and the Consumer Affairs Agency have commenced cooperation to work out measures regarding consumer protection as stated in the Tourism Industry Act.

## (4) Efforts to encourage Japanese to travel overseas

“Measures for simplifying overseas travel for citizens”, “policies for young people” and the “promotion of Two Way Tourism in cooperation with VWC $ ^{1} $ projects”, are the 3 pillars of outbound policies, which were integrated by the Japan Tourism Agency in December 2008. Based on these outbound policies, issues that must be taken care of by the union of citizens and governments are being worked out with the cooperation of related parties.

Moreover, in order to ensure the security of overseas travelers, the Japan Tourism Agency communicates closely with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to thoroughly communicate information to overseas travelers and to develop emergency communication systems for travel agencies.

## (5) Creation of new travel models

To encourage the creation and distribution of “New Tourism” that utilizes the unique attractiveness of the region, demonstration projects were implemented continuously from FY 2008.

Moreover, starting from January 2010, the “Tourism Cooperation Consortium” set up under the Headquarters of Tourism Nation Promotion is carrying out a review of comprehensive promotion policies about the diversified tourism menu, such as eco-tourism, green tourism, cultural tourism, industrial tourism, sports tourism, and medical tourism, with the cooperation of related ministries and government offices.

## (6) Developing tourism statistics

Currently, prefectures record statistics on incoming tourists by themselves and with their own methods. The “Common Standard for Statistics on Incoming Tourists,” scheduled to start from FY 2010, was formulated in December 2009 in order to unify items and methods for tourism statistics. Additionally, a full introduction of TSA $ ^{2} $ , which has been employed