POINT OF VIEW/ Kinju Naito: Economy needs workers to take all paid holidays

The benefits of a thriving tourist industry are not limited to hotels and guesthouses but ripple throughout an economy, through the sector's many supporting industries: transportation, restaurants, souvenir retailing and manufacturing, down to the farmers and fishermen that produce the foods enjoyed by travelers.

I believe tourism has the potential to deliver a very significant stimulus to Japanese domestic demand. Thus, I would like to make two proposals to promote its growth.

The first is to encourage all working people to use all of their paid holidays and to take their vacations more evenly throughout the year. Currently, the average worker is allowed 18 paid holidays annually. In reality, most people take off only about half of that.

According to an estimate by the Tourism Area Management Forum of the Japan Productivity Center, if everybody was to use all of their paid holiday, it would be the equivalent of a 16-trillion-yen ($171 billion) shot in the arm for the economy. It would also create 1.88 million new jobs.

To achieve this sort of effect, it will be necessary to disperse the holidays taken by workers throughout the year. The timing of school vacations is a key issue here. If family travel demand were not concentrated around certain dates, such as the year-end and New Year holiday season, and had a more even flow over the whole year, hotels and other tourism-related businesses could hire more workers on a regular basis. There would be other benefits, too: They might reduce their high-season prices and traffic congestion might be alleviated.

In thinking about how to encourage a more dispersed use of paid holidays, the geography of the Japanese archipelago should be taken into account. The country's climate varies greatly from north to south. Why not stagger school vacations for each region according to local climate and circumstance? A similar system is already in place in France and Germany.

My second proposal is to promote policies to bolster the number of foreign tourists, particularly those from neighboring East Asian countries. The number of foreign visitors to Japan had grown over time, reaching 8.35 million in 2008, but the figure is far fewer than those for the most popular countries in Europe and the United States.

The government has set a target of increasing the total number of foreign visitors to Japan to 25 million in 10 years. According to government estimates, if the goal is met, it would pump about 10 trillion yen into the economy and create 560,000 additional jobs.

To achieve this goal, Japan should focus on visitors from the Chinese mainland. Last year, contrary to the prevailing trend, there was a marked 18-percent drop in the number of foreign visitors to just below 7 million people. The decline was partly due to the global recession and the spread of a new strain of influenza. Nevertheless, visitors from China continued to rise, topping 1 million for two years in a row. This figure is expected to steadily increase in the future.

To attract more Chinese tourists, Japan needs, first of all, to ease the requirements for the issuing of visas. Currently, Chinese individuals with an annual income of at least 250,000 yuan (about 3.3 million yen) are allowed to enter Japan on an independent tour. This hurdle should be lowered. Visitor numbers could also be raised by issuing multiple-entry visas to allow Chinese tourists to visit Japan as many times as they like during a set period. I believe this could result in a fivefold increase in Chinese tourists in the next 10 years.

It will also be important to target prospective countries with promotional campaigns and tailored tour planning. Providing detailed tourist information and guidance services in multiple languages and making an effort to attract school trips and international conferences will also promote growth.

The government plans to increase the number of departure and arrival slots at Narita and Haneda airports by this autumn. International flights to and from Japan, including chartered flights and those by low-cost carriers, must be increased through further liberalization of the aviation market and efforts to encourage fair competition. A surge in the number of foreign visitors would contribute much to revitalizing our local economies.

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Kinju Naito is a J.F. Oberlin University professor emeritus specializing in tourism studies.