On November 17th-19th, the 2020 International Mountain Tourism Alliance Annual Conference opened in Guiyang. The Conference is concentrated on the theme of "The Path of Mountain Tourism Development in the Post-COVID World". During the annual conference, the participants focused on this major topic, and discuss depth in how to promote the revitalization and quality of mountain tourism after the pandemic, and provide thoughts guidance and practice support for global mountain tourism management and promotion of global tourism industry.
This Annual Conference is hosted by the International Mountain Tourism Alliance. UNWTO, WTTC, PATA, GTEF, WTA, WTCF, ASEAN-China Centre, WCCO and other well-know international organizations and associations provided powerful support.
The Speech on the 2020"Dialogue among Famous Mountains in the World"
Kazuhiro ARAI，Chairman of Hokkaido Adventure Travel Association, Representative of Daisetsuzan National Park
Hi, Everyone. It is an honor to speak here at 2020 “Dialogue among Famous Mountains in the World”. My name is Kazu Arai from Daisetsuzan Nature School in Japan. Our organization provides 3 main services such as environmental education, ecotours and nature conservation. We base at Daisetsuzan National Park in Hokkaido the northernmost island. This is the largest national park in Japan, with the area of 226,000 ha. Today, I would like to share with you about one of the ideas of developing alpine tourism for new customers’ needs, that is Authenticity. Another words, re-building, and re-enforcing of our lifestyle with mountains. This is not new, but it has been always difficult to make it into action. So I want to challenge this.
Let’s say, you visit us in Japan, and if I as a guide say “Welcome to Hokkaido, I prepared activities for you, for Chinese guests, so you will be comfortable, but locals do not normally do this”. Is this exciting? The answer is no? That tour maybe comfortable because it’s customized to you, but this is not an adventure at all, because the experiences will stay within your expectations. So, why do you travel? You are seeking to experience the real cultures, instead of “the Man-Made Tourism Products”. Is it correct? I guess you would prefer to see for example, the locals harvesting wild edible plants and they ask you if you want to taste? Or if you go to a lake, the local kids are swimming while parents are fishing with their local pick-nick gear. I mean that “you will see the outdoor is their daily lifestyle and you are shared their experience.” This is different from a tour operator offering you a product, I would like to make this kind of “structure” into our tourism destination.
So, “Authenticity” as re-building or reinforcing our local mountain cultures, is the key word, and we are working on providing learning opportunities of local outdoor skills to kids as well as their parents. For example, our community harvest maple sap to make maple syrup every March; all the school kids know how to start fire with native tree bark even in snow, that is skills from Ainu, the indigenous culture in Hokkaido; all the kids in town have a pair of skis because ski field is 5 minutes away from home and we do it at school. So now, we do so in our daily life, which means it is a habit and culture of this area.
To conclude my speech, lets’ say A, B, or C grade tourism resources. Grade A resource such as famous skiing resort or beautiful hiking course are already well known, and tourists will get satisfied. So we leave that there. But we have more possibilities to improve on B or C grade resources which are often small, but it is the local lifestyle. And, this is what tourists want, “the authentic experiences” . I think we should work on this for our sustainable tourism development.
Lastly, it’s not easy to look at the camera, I kept reading, So, I am looking forward to seeing you here in Hokkaido. Thank you very much.
Dialogue
The Host of 2020 “Dialogue among Famous Mountains in the World”
Emma Chen，Global Vice President of the Internationale Organisation Für Volkskunst (IOV)
President Emma Chen (Host): What mountain tourism related activities were launched before the outbreak in Daisetsuzan National Park? What do you think is the role of adventure tourism in attracting mountain ？
Kazuhiro ARAI: The role of Adventure Tourism is an icon and implementation of sustainable tourism. In Daisetsuzan, the ideas of “wise use” has been promoted since the last 20years. I think “Wise Use” means “management by users”, and the main idea is “Users behaving properly with better understanding”. Its been slowly but certainly moving into action. So you don’t see any rubbish at all in the park, and very pleasant environment there, or even, some of the hikers are helping track maintenance as well. So now, adventure tourism can drive it forward as an icon for young people. Saying “You can seek your self-realization with spontaneous movement for conservation”, which is sustainability.
President Emma Chen (Host): Mountain tourism covers such the forms as skiing and climbing. What suggestions do you propose for Daisetsuzan National Park to meet the new needs from the younger demographics？
Kazuhiro ARAI: Providing variety of choices. Younger generation are rational and good at searching time by time. DMO here promote ourselves a “Mountain city resort” because we have more than 10 ski areas within 1 hour time, so you can actually choose where to go according to conditions in the morning. You can also say the same thing in summer about hiking. There are alpine hiking, deep forest hiking, swamp, lakeside hiking or rice farm area hiking. You can experience more than 3 environments in one day. We have diverse environments. This gives variety of choices to maximize tourists’ experiences, and should be interesting for young people or it’s not only for young people, but also adults. To make it forward, development of “information” and “transportation” is crucial. And transportation should be ecological as well. Thank you!
