The powerful earthquake that recently hit Hokkaido threw a strong spotlight on how unprepared Japan is to provide foreign visitors with information during a crisis.

With the number of foreign visitors expected to grow ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the government is introducing multilingual emergency information apps and other tools, but a lot more work is needed to train people who can provide direct assistance to non-Japanese during an emergency, experts say.

Hokkaido, a fairly popular tourist destination, gets close to 2.8 million foreign visitors a year.