## (1) Securing supply of accommodation facilities

With the aim of addressing the continued tight supply of accommodations mainly for hotels in urban areas due to a rapid increase in the number of inbound foreign visitors, Japanese inns and accommodations in the countryside that were not operating at full capacity in terms of room occupancy ratios improved their facilities in an effort to attract foreign guests to them, such as by establishing the Wi-Fi environment and changing toilets to western-style one. Also, information on various Japanese accommodation facilities targeted to foreign travelers was disseminated via the JNTO website in addition to enhancing the provision of vacancy information at information centers and facilities for attracting visitors. With respect to minpaku (private residence accommodation) services, the MLIT and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) jointly launched a review meeting on minpaku services in November 2015, which will reach conclusions within June 2016 to establish necessary laws.

## (2) Strengthening multilingual services and tourism information

As for multilingual support, in coordination with relevant ministers, we pushed forward initiatives to ensure consistency and continuity of markings used in a broad range of facilities, such as art galleries, museums, natural parks, tourist sites, roads and public transport facilities in accordance with common guidelines for multilingual services formulated and published in March 2014. For example, we improved road information signs to include English in 49 major tourist sites nationwide and other places in coordination with information signs of various organizations to guide inbound foreign visitors appropriately. Furthermore, the committee for appropriate road signs of each prefecture coordinated with relevant organizations so that road information signs will be consistent with English indications of road related facilities and names of places, such as mountains used in information signs and the English map at the scale of 1:1,000,000 prepared by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan.

In addition, as the result of working to further enhance JNTO certified information centers for foreign travelers, category 2 or above foreign tourist information centers that provide wide-area tourist information were established in all prefectures in FY 2015.

## (3) Review of the guide interpreter system

In regard to the guide interpreter system, the Act on Special Zones for Structural Reform was amended in September 2015 to meet regional needs, and a newly created system for regional special guides was adopted in Kyoto-shi, Takayamashi and other cities.

(4) Improvement of communications environment for foreign travelers such as pushing forward the establishment of the free public wireless LAN environment

The MLIT set up the council for promoting free public wireless LAN in coordination with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, and pushed forward the further improvement of the free public wireless LAN environment, dissemination and promotion by introducing common symbol marks, and simplifying authentication procedures with the aim of creating an environment where foreign travelers can walk around on their own. Also, with the aim of promoting the use of SIM cards and mobile Wi-Fi routers, a campaign for expanding available areas and increasing recognition was conducted from December 2015.

## (5) Securing the security and safety of foreign travelers

Prefectural governments selected medical institutions that can receive foreign travelers and treat a wide-variety of cases based on the requirements presented by the Japan Tourism Agency and the MHLW. The list of about 320 medical institutions selected as such was put together and disseminated in March 2016. Furthermore, as the result of calling for the development of travel insurance that foreign travelers can subscribe to after visiting Japan so that they can receive treatment without worrying about medical insurance, nonlife insurance companies are now working on the development of such products.

## (6) Improving the environment to receive cruise ships

In response to requests from foreign shipping companies, the website for centrally disseminating specifications of port facilities and tourist information around ports of call was enhanced in cooperation with the National Cruise Vitalization