## (2) Reviving Tourism

To recover the major drop in the number of foreign tourists coming to the Tohoku and North Kanto areas after the earthquake, we are working on dispelling harmful rumors in major overseas markets and engaging in PR work regarding the recovering of tourism in these regions.

To be more specific, we posted accurate information regarding things like radiation doses on the Japan Government Tourist Office website for the benefit of overseas consumers, and we invited members of foreign media to the Tohoku region to promote the appeal of the Tohoku as a tourist destination. In addition, we invited overseas travel companies to the Tohoku region, and communicated tourism information about the Tohoku region by supporting the development of travel products and having an overseas travel exposition. Furthermore, for overseas governments, we held the Japan/ASEAN Tourism Cooperation Policy Dialogue in the Tohoku region. These visits to the Tohoku area, and the sending out of accurate information and appealing to the attraction of Tohoku, as well as other efforts to recover the demand for tourism, resulted in the number of overseas tourists visiting Japan reaching the highest it ever had of 10.36 million visitors in 2013 (24% increase compared to previous year, 67% increase compared to two years ago).

We are also implementing different initiatives to recover national tourism. For the Pacific Ocean coastal areas in particular, we have supported efforts for both going to other regions and receiving visitors from other regions by developing public relations, improving the dispatch of information, advancing the creation of travel products and recovery tours that are unique to the region, passing on the memories from the earthquake, and creating systems to promote visitation exchanges. In addition, to facilitate the earliest possible recovery of tourism in Fukushima prefecture, we supported tourism-related businesses that contributed to the efforts for reputation damage control and disaster recovery. Furthermore, starting in March 2012, we began the full-scale promotion of the “Tohoku & North Kanto Visiting Campaign,” which supports the recovery of Tohoku and the North Kanto regions through visitation. Aiming to expand the scale of solidarity, we are widely requesting the cooperation of local citizens by collecting and disseminating information regarding activities of endorsement organizations on the Japan Tourism Agency website.

According to the Accommodation Survey conducted by the Japan Tourism Agency, the annual values of 2013 $ ^{Note1} $ showed that the number of overnight guest was about 456 million overnights, the highest value since the survey had been conducted from 2007, and an increase of 3.8% compared to the previous year, showing a noticeable trend of recovery in the domestic economy.

In the 6 prefectures in the Tohoku area $ {}^{Note 2} $ , the total number was about 39 million overnight, showing a 0.8% increase from 2010, from before the earthquake disaster. However, if we look at the total number that are mainly for tourists $ {}^{Note 3} $ , the number has decreased by 21.2% compared to 2010, showing that the major scars left by the earthquake disaster is preventing the national economic boom from reaching these areas.

## Section 5 Ensuring the Smooth Execution of Reconstruction Projects

Due to the increase in the number of construction work orders for restoration and reconstruction projects in the disaster affected areas, there have been cases of problematic bids and non-bidding, mainly for construction work with difficult execution conditions. Even for such construction projects though, by the ordering party being more creative when re-ordering—like increasing the size of the order lot—most projects have been able to reach the contract stage. In order to secure the smooth execution of construction projects by considering the amount of manpower and materials required for construction, the MLIT has taken the necessary measures by cooperating with relevant organizations and related businesses through the “Reconstruction Acceleration Conference,” (the meeting was held three times since March 2013) and the “Liaison Council for Securing Construction for Restoration and Reconstruction Projects” (the council was held eight times since December 2011). At these meetings, to set the estimated price in accordance with the prevailing price, the labor unit price at disaster affected areas was increased by approximately 21% in April 2013, and increased again about another 8% in February 2014. We are also introducing reconstruction factors that are derived from reconstruction unit prices and indirect construction costs that take into account the actual construction conditions in disaster affected areas.