California's tourism office didn't waste any time when the dollar sunk to new lows against the yen. For the past couple of weeks, commercial TV stations have aired ads for the Golden State featuring shots of its natural and man-made delights, capped with a personal message from the Governator himself. I can't understand the Japanese that Arnold Schwarzenegger mangles in his segment — or whether it is, in fact, Japanese — but the characteristic way he says "Kah-lee-for-nya" is perfect, since it's how most Japanese pronounce it, too.
Meanwhile, Japan's new Tourism Agency (JTA), which opened for business Oct. 1, gets the short end of the currency-exchange stick. It's too early to tell what effect the high yen will have on visitors from North America and Europe, but it's been a drag on tourism from Asia for a while now. According to the Hokkaido Shimbun, the number of foreign visitors to Japan in September was down almost 7 percent over the same month last year, the first time a year-on-year drop has exceeded 5 percent since 2003, when the threat of avian flu put a substantial brake on travel throughout Asia. The bulk of this loss is visitors from Korea and Taiwan, who together account for half of Japan's foreign tourism. The South Korean won, for instance, started slipping against the yen almost a year ago, and its value is now 30 percent lower than what it was at its peak.
The JTA projects that the situation will get worse before it gets better, which makes for an inauspicious start for the agency and, owing to the global financial crisis, one that it can't do anything about.