YAMAGATA (Kyodo) Businesses around the ski area in the middle of the Zao mountains in Yamagata Prefecture are hard at work trying to attract Asian tourists to offset the declining number of Japanese skiers.
Staff are learning foreign languages and trying to acquire skills to better serve the needs of foreign customers in hopes they will also lure back Japanese tourists after honing their customer-service skills.
One day in December, about a dozen employees from area inns gathered in a conference room at Yamagata Prefecture's tourist industry association and chanted in unison "an-nyong-ha-se-yo" (Korean for "welcome"). They were attending one of the language classes sponsored by the prefectural government to teach staff key phrases in Korean and Chinese.