Photo/Illutration Government inspectors check flotation gear in Iwami, Tottori Prefecture, on April 26. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

A sightseeing boat operator based along the scenic Uradome coast in Iwami, Tottori Prefecture, has struggled since the Kazu I tour boat sank off Hokkaido in late April. 

About 300 bookings, including a school excursion, have been canceled, according to Sanin Matsushima Yuran Inc.

The company has also received inquiries about its criteria for determining if a tour should be canceled, from people who heard the Shiretoko Pleasure Boat, the Kazu I operator, decided to set sail even though the weather forecast exceeded its safety criteria.

Sanin Matsushima Yuran has posted its own safety criteria on its website, but staff worry for how long the impact will continue.

Sightseeing boat operators nationwide are doing all they can to minimize the negative publicity caused by the deadly Shiretoko boat accident on April 23, in which 26 passengers and crew were aboard. Fourteen bodies have been recovered and 12 people remain missing. 

The transport ministry and others conducted an inspection at Omijima Kankoukisen, a company that operates a sightseeing boat tour in Omijima island in Nagato, Yamaguchi Prefecture, after the Shiretoko incident. The area is known for oddly shaped rocks.

The company said authorities did not find a problem.

However, there were about 30 percent as many passengers as usually seen during the recent national Golden Week holidays, even though surrounding restaurants and gift shops were crowded.

The company had hoped for a return of passengers lost during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But a company representative said the Shiretoko accident’s impact “has been huge.”

The Hozugawa Yusen Sightseeing Boat Association, which operates riverboat tours on the Hozugawa river in Kyoto’s Arashiyama district, said the transport ministry’s representative came to the office for a safety inspection and took about two hours to check the association’s records and boats.

A representative of the association said the safety inspection “seemed more thorough than before.”

The representative did not find a problem, the association said.

The association received guidance that it would be better to have cold protection sheets on their boats in the event of an emergency so that passengers can use the sheets while waiting on board to be rescued.

Passengers are supposed to wear the sheets, which are thin and made of aluminum, like a blanket.

“There are many agendas up for discussion, such as the size and the required number of such sheets," said a representative of the association. "It will cost a lot, but we should be creative.”

The Ship Safety Law requires small boats to have as many flotation gear as the passenger capacity.

Boats used on lakes are not required to have as many flotation gear, however, as long as it has either a buoyant apparatus that all passengers can hold onto or a rescue raft that can accommodate all passengers.

Fujigoko Kisen, a company that operates a small sightseeing boat in Lake Kawaguchiko at the base of Mount Fuji in Yamanashi Prefecture, said it is considering adding flotation gear.

(This article was written by Hiroaki Takeda and Natsuki Edogawa.)

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