(2) Supporting approaches to developing human resources to work for creating tourism areas

To accelerate voluntary, self-reliant regional approaches to developing human resources to work for creating tourism areas, the methods, etc. for human resources development tailored to specific local conditions have been formulated and tried and their nationwide dissemination and deployment has been expedited.

Tourism nation education has also been promoted to foster a “Travel Mind” among the children in collaboration of school officials keen about tourism nation education.

## (3) Accelerating approaches to tourism tailored to diversified tourist needs

Releasing travel commodities tailored to diversified tourist needs by taking advantage of local characteristics, such as natural environments, agriculture, cultures and local industries, takes on growing importance. For this reason, measures to diffuse and promote locally developed travel commodities among the general consumers, travel agencies and the like were weighed and compiled into a working guide in FY2013 in the wake of a review of the measures to make for better user satisfaction in FY2012.

In addition, the Japan Tourism Agency concluded policy promotion partnerships in November 2013 with the Agency for Cultural Affairs and with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in January 2014 to provide locally distinctive charms to suit visitors' needs by taking advantage of local cultural properties and farming, mountain and fishing villages' resources and also to externally disseminate information about these charms Japan-branded.

Regarding sports tourism, actions designed to introduce Japan’s sports, tourism and cultures were supported at the “Sport Accord Convention” held in May 2013 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. In July, the first meeting of “Marathon Japan” took place in Seoul, Korea in an active quest to introduce various marathon races held in Japan as attractive sports tourism resources to foreign countries.

## (4) Promoting universal tourism

Approaches to consolidating local preparedness to host tourists of any kind, including those having constrained physical access to travel, such as elderly or physically challenging people, have been made and studies for accelerating the availability of universal travel commodities launched, so anybody can enjoy touring.

## 7 Encouraging holiday taking

The Japan Tourism Agency carried out the “Create Family Time Project,” a scheme aimed at adapting adults’ and children’s holidays to each other in an unified community effort through flexible school holiday scheduling, at 134 schools in 11 regions nationwide during FY2013 to help create travel demand.

In the meantime, the “Positive Off” movement has been driven jointly with the Cabinet Office, Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare and Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to encourage businesses and groups to take a positive approach to taking and enjoying holidays (off time). As of the end of FY2013, 387 businesses and groups were in support of this movement.

## 8 Preparing tourism statistics

Efforts have been made to hasten the timing at which to release findings of statistical surveys on trips with lodging, the Accommodation Survey, the National Tourism Survey and the Consumption Trend Survey for Foreigners Visiting Japan. The methods of analyzing these three kinds of travel statistics have also been introduced.

In addition to these three kinds of tourism statistics, the Regional Tourism Economic Survey was conducted on about 90,000 business establishments nationwide, at the timing of the implementation of the Economic Census for Business Activity, to shed light on the basic structure of the tourism industry (number of travel agents, sales, status of employment and working employees, and so on). A preliminary report on the tourism area economic survey was released in August 2013.