Inside Asian Gaming

IAG JAN 2021年1月 亞博匯 26 COVER STORY Japan suffers from one of the fastest declining populations in the world – the current 126 million is projected to decline 15% to 107 million by 2040, and some estimate the population will fall to just 87 million by 2060. Japan has the highest proportion of elderly citizens of any country in the world – more than a third of the population is over 60 years old and the national average life expectancy is 85 years. It has far more centenarians per capita than any other country. On top of a stagnant economy and a declining population, Japan also regularly suffers from natural disasters as a result of her climate, topography and the plate tectonics of the region. In just the past decade she has been beset by typhoons, landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis and even a major volcanic eruption. The 2011 tsunami and subsequent disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was the most expensive natural disaster in recorded world history – estimated by the World Bank to have cost over US$200 billion. All these factors see Japan in desperate need of policies and initiatives to propel the economy forward in the 21st century. Former long-time Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was a leading proponent of introducing an IR industry to Japan as one such policy, aimed at driving inbound tourism. In 2019 Japan hosted 32 million tourists, of which 9.6 million were from China, up from just 2.4 million inbound Chinese tourists five years earlier. The Japanese government has a total inbound tourism target of 60 million visitors by 2030, of which around 18 million are expected to be from China. Abe resigned as Japan’s Prime Minister in September last year for health reasons, but his 這些因素都令到日本迫切地需要一些可以在廿一世紀推動 經濟的政策及措施。長期在位的前首相安倍晉三就是其中一個主 要推動把IR行業引進日本的推手，並以此作為其中一項政策，目標 是推動外來遊客的旅遊業。在2019年，日本接待了3200萬名遊客， 當中960萬來自中國，比起5年前的240萬大幅增加。日本政府的目 標是在2030年招待6000萬名遊客，當中1800萬名預計將來自中 國。 安倍晉三在去九月以健康理由辭任日本首相，但他的接任人 菅義偉就在10月28日的日本國會眾議院講話中確認，相信IR為日 本發展成旅遊目的地是十分重要的，並且重申會繼續前任支持IR 的政策。這實在毫不出奇，因為日本的現任新首相正是安倍多年 的左右手，更被一些人視為安倍年代的「影子首相」。 甚麼? 所以2020年出現了甚麼轉變？長話短說，很多。 與全球近乎所有行業一樣，日本IR格局於2020年被新冠肺 炎疫情所主導。這場大流行令許多外派到日本工作的國際IR企 業外籍高管「返回大本營」。更糟糕的是，疫情實際上令往返日本 的行程變得不可能，這意味著國際IR企業代表無法與當地重要 的利益相關者會面，包括政治人物、官員、承包商、潛在的合作財 團、投資銀行等等。跟許多人一樣，在疫情中，如Zoom和Micro- soft Teams等線上視像會議軟件成了新常態，某程度上成了替 代選項，但始終未能取替面對面會議，特別在日本，與他人建立 關係是開展業務的重要一環，而且相關業務規模更高達數十億 元。