ISE, MIE PREF. –

Hopes in Mie Prefecture for tourism growth after the Group of Seven Ise-Shima summit from May 26 to 27 remain high. But with tourists worried about heavy security and U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Hiroshima stealing the spotlight, residents aren't so sure what the situation will be during the summit itself.

With just weeks to go until the leaders of Japan, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Canada assemble with the presidents of the European Council and the European Commission in Mie, the first question on many residents' lips is how the tightened security will affect vehicle traffic and train schedules.

In March, the Mie Prefectural Police released bilingual brochures in English and Japanese on what the traffic restrictions would be throughout the prefecture. Between May 25 and 28, anyone driving on the expressways between Nagoya and Ise faces the prospect of being stopped and searched — or having to wait until a motorcade passes.

"The plan is that the expressway would be closed in portions, and reopened after the VIPs pass through. But we don't know the time period each section of the roads along the route to Ise-Shima might be closed to allow motorcades to pass through," said Susumu Kobayashi, an Ise city official involved in planning for the summit.

In addition, while Kintetsu and Japan Railway trains in many parts of Mie will run, there will be security at the stations and on the trains.

More than 20,000 police officers are expected to be in Mie for the summit itself, but security preparations are now necessary for Obama's side visit to Hiroshima, raising concerns among officials. At a meeting of police officials in Tokyo last month, Masahito Kanetaka, chief of the National Policy Agency, said it was the job of the police to expect the unexpected.

For his part, Mie Gov. Eikei Suzuki is extremely concerned that all will go off without incident.

"First, of course, is (to aim for) a safe summit. Thorough security is the utmost concern," Suzuki said late last month at a regular news conference.

But the constant drumbeat of police, government and media messages about potential terror attacks, and the presence of so much security in Mie from early April plus the earthquake fears from Kyushu, convinced many tourists that either no hotel rooms would be available during the  just-ended Golden Week holidays or that it would be too much of a hassle to bother making the trip.

In some places, hotel reservations were down by as much as 20 percent compared with last year's Golden Week, prompting local last-minute campaigns to lure tourists. Toba, near Ise, even put up posters that read: "Relax. You can find a room," just before Golden Week.

On April 28, the Nagoya-based Chubu Region Institute for Social and Economic Research warned that the decrease in tourism prompted by the heavy security in Mie meant the prefecture would lose about ¥3.2 billion in tourist revenue.

That's small change compared with the institute's prediction for post-summit tourism revenue, which is ¥119 billion by 2020, up ¥40 billion from 2015.

But many of the predictions for economic growth are based on the assumption that hosting the summit will bring extensive media coverage, both domestic and international, that will boost Mie's name recognition.

There are two problems with that.

The first is the official name of the meeting: the Ise-Shima summit. While the Ise area, especially Ise Shrine, may benefit, other towns in Mie have their doubts.

"Most people in Mie do want the summit. And yet, there's also a feeling that it's the 'Ise-Shima' summit, so enthusiasm may not be as high here as it is in Ise," said Mariko Matsui, an NPO leader based in Mie's Yokkaichi and involved with the G-7 NGO summit that will take place there just before the Ise-Shima meeting.

And since Obama will visit Hiroshima on the last day of the summit, there may be fewer Japanese and foreign media in Mie either right before or during the summit than initially planned.

In public, officials are taking a long-term perspective.

They hope tourists traveling back and forth between Tokyo and Kyoto will decide to take a detour after Nagoya to visit Mie, particularly Ise Shrine, where the number of Japanese tourists is decreasing as foreign visitors swell.

Last year, about 8.4 million people visited the shrine, one of the most important in Shinto. Overall, that represents a drop of about 2.5 million from 2014. But the number of foreigners nearly hit 98,000, up 31,000 from 2014.