Dogs and Demons_ Tales From the Dark Side of Japan - Kerr [82]
Traveling abroad, the Japanese cannot help noticing that they find quality in hotel design and service, in life in general, which they cannot find at home. The contrast is especially strong in Southeast Asia, where resort design and management are highly advanced, and where hotels have been built with natural materials and a sensitive regard for local culture.
Dr. Johnson said, «To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition.» In the decline of domestic travel lies the paradox of modern Japan: After decades of economic growth providing a per capita income many times their neighbors', the Japanese are not able to enjoy their own country. They are not happy at home.
The number of foreign visitors to Japan, never large, has grown only sluggishly, from about 3.5 million in 1990 to 4.5 million in 1999. Japan ranks thirty-second in the world for foreign tourist arrivals, far behind Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia – and light-years behind China, Poland, or Mexico, each of which admits tens of millions of tourists every year. For all the literature about Japan's international role, it's sobering to realize that Japan has very nearly fallen off the tourist map. Every year more people visit Tunisia or Croatia than visit Japan. Another way to assess the amount of tourism is the number of foreign visitors against national population. In Japan, the ratio is only 3 percent, ranking eighty-second in the world. (The corresponding number for South Korea is more than double: 8 percent.)
The economic consequences of Japan's failed tourist industry are serious. In 1998, when 4.1 million foreign visitors came to Japan, the United States had 47 million visitors and France had 70 million. The United States earned $74 billion, France raised about $29.7, and Japan had only $4.1 billion. Looking at it from a balance-of-payments point of view, we see that U.S. citizens spent $51.2 billion in tourism abroad but earned $23 billion more than that. Japan, by contrast, spent $33 billion overseas but had a $29 billion tourism deficit.
It is commonly believed that among the many reasons tourism in Japan has lost its appeal to both foreigners and the Japanese people, the most important are the high yen and the cost of travel within Japan. But these arguments are not entirely persuasive. Well-heeled foreign travelers think nothing of spending thousands of dollars to stay in posh resorts in Phuket or Bali, but give Japan a wide berth. The real reason is that the rewards in scenic beauty and travel amenities are very slim. How ever much tourists enjoy a quiet Zen rock garden in Kyoto they confront a chaotic and trashy modern cityscape the minute they walk out of the garden. At the hotel, they will seek i n vain for anything to remind them that they are in Kyoto, and instead be oppressed by an environment of shiny polyester wallpaper and garish chandeliers. The visitor to a famous waterfall or stand of pine trees on a beach has to frame the view very closely to shut out the concrete embankments that are the universal mark of the modern Japanese landscape. No one will write an idyllic book about Japan like Summer in Provence or Under the Tuscan Sun.
With Japan's old-fashioned manufacturing and construction economy beginning to stagnate in the 1990s, it came as a jolt to the government to realize that perhaps services do matter to a modern economy, and a few officials began looking