As Tomakomai City, Rusutsu village and other local municipalities are actively preparing for the IR selection process, Hokkaido Economic Federation – a corporate group made up of 500 companies in Hokkaido – published a report in support of IR selection.
The topic of the report was, “Achieving Hokkaido Regional Tourism Promotion with a focus on IR” and emphasized two main points – one, that Hokkaido is the optimum location for the “Developed Nation Tourism” concept of a Japan IR and two, it will largely contribute to resolving the tourism and economic social problems in Hokkaido.
Analysis shows that it will be possible to attract customers to tourist locations via IR facilities, particularly for long-stay tourism. These efforts are in conjunction with the planned privatization of seven airports in Hokkaido and extension of the Hokkaido bullet train.
At the same time, anxiety is rising among residents of Hokkaido, especially regarding problem gambling, and the topic of taking measures and offering courses to deepen the public’s understanding while minimizing the negative image of IRs was also introduced in the report
“Our belief is that an IR will provide a large economic ripple effect and we can expect innovations in tourism, development of human resources, industrial technology, transportation and other innovations for Hokkaido’s future, and we should promote it,” the report concludes.