An academic with a background in the airline industry is teaching tourism agencies in Japan about Muslim visitors and Islamic law to help the country better accommodate visitors at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
"The number of visitors from South Korea and Taiwan first surged and that of Chinese tourists started rising in the early 2000s," said 63-year-old Yoshitaka Hayashi, a professor at Kyoei University in Saitama Prefecture.
Citing the government's recent easing of visa requirements for people from Southeast Asia as well as rapid economic growth in the region, Hayashi said that "we will see an upsurge, this time, in the number of people from Malaysia and Indonesia that are home to many Muslims."