By YOSHIKATSU NAKAJIMA/ Staff Writer
June 22, 2023 at 08:00 JST
The remains of the tsunami-hit Taro Kanko Hotel in the Taro district of Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, in November 2019 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
“Rebuilding tourism” packages are being planned to give visitors a close look at how Tohoku region communities have recovered from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Tokyo-based East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) is working out sightseeing routes that will likely cover disaster memorial facilities and allow participants to hear firsthand accounts from survivors.
The program is aimed at helping to revitalize stricken communities by attracting tourists. The trips are also intended to spread lessons about disaster management and disaster mitigation, company officials said.
JR East will set up and become secretariat of the provisionally named “Tohoku rebuilding tourism promotion network” on July 25.
Among the parties expected to join the network are the Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectural governments, the central government’s Reconstruction Agency, travel agencies and airline companies.
JR East officials said prospective model routes include a two-night, three-day tour that starts and ends at Tokyo Station.
Tourists will visit the remains of the tsunami-wrecked Taro Kanko Hotel, which is preserved as a disaster memorial facility, in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, take a ride on Sanriku Railway Co.’s “quake and tsunami education train,” and feast on Iwate Prefecture’s specialty “wanko soba” buckwheat noodle bowls, officials said.
The network is expected to develop additional model routes for corporate clients to use as training tours for new hires, as well as for schools for educational purposes.
The network will also spread information on similar routes for tourists from abroad.
JR East is initiating the network partly because many disaster memorial facilities have been built, and partly because travel demand is rising with the downgrade of COVID-19’s infectious disease category in May.
JR East officials said they hope promotion of rebuilding tourism will “help the Tohoku region be chosen as a destination of educational tours and be visited on repeated occasions.”
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