NEWSWORTHY
Green light for casinos offers jackpot to Japanese companies
Let the competition begin. Now that Japan has enacted a law outlining a road map for casino resorts, foreign operators from Las Vegas Sands Corp. to MGM Resorts International can start to seek out partners in their bid to tap a gaming market that may ...
Fruit-picking tours luring more visitors to Japan
Tourist farms across the country are attracting more visitors who have placed fruit-picking high on their itineraries as the global reputation of Japanese fruit grows. With more tourists selecting cultural experiences over material goods, a number of companies have embraced farm tourism, and tourist farms ...
Kawagoe: From Edo standout to tourist draw
Kawagoe, Saitama Prefecture, is less than an hour's train ride from central Tokyo. But in this city full of history, one would feel a sense of nostalgia in the streets thanks to a number of traditional Japanese kura warehouse buildings from the Edo Period ...
Stunning images of Hawaii's erupting Kilauea volcano have captivated people around the world. But ironically it is nearly impossible for residents and visitors on the ground to see the lava — a fact that is squeezing the tourism-dependent local economy. Big Island businesses are calling ...
Number of foreign visitors to Japan up 15.6% in first half of 2018
The estimated number of foreign visitors to Japan from January to June rose 15.6 percent from the same period a year earlier to 15.89 million, a record for the first half of the year, the Japan Tourism Agency said Wednesday. If the pace of increase ...
Hotels and tours in western Japan see cancellations after rain disaster
Thousands of people are canceling trips to popular tourist spots in western Japan even though many of their destinations were left unscathed by the recent deadly rain disaster, local officials said Wednesday. Dogo Onsen in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, known as one of Japan's oldest hot ...
Casinos in Japan: Tourist attractions or hotbeds of gambling addiction?
As the year's ordinary Diet session nears a climax this week, debate is heating up over a bill Prime Minister Shinzo Abe characterizes as key to his growth strategy: the so-called casino implementation legislation. The bill spells out a raft of rules on the structure ...
Large percentage of private lodgings in Okinawa vanish after new minpaku law takes effect
With its abundant, pristine beaches and renowned cultural and historic sites, it's little surprise that Okinawa Prefecture became a hot market for minpaku (private lodging) services. But after a new law for such lodgings took effect on June 15, most of the more than 3,000 ...
New era for space tourism: Flights from Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin could come in 2019
The two companies leading the pack in the pursuit of space tourism say they are just months away from their first out-of-this-world passenger flights — though neither has set a firm date. Virgin Galactic, founded by British billionaire Richard Branson, and Blue Origin, by Amazon ...
Tourists visiting western Japan stranded amid flood warnings and canceled trains
Japan's ancient capital braced itself for further rain Saturday night amid concerns about rising rivers, while canceled bullet trains due to severe rain and flooding in western Japan left tourists stranded and scrambling to find alternative routes. Evacuation orders or advisories were issued for many ...
Eight dead, 49 missing after Thai tourist boat carrying mainly Chinese sinks off Phuket
Thailand's navy pulled 12 bodies from waters off the coast of the holiday island of Phuket on Friday after a tourist boat went down in heavy seas with dozens of Chinese passengers on board. Five were found drifting in the water, still wearing life jackets, ...
Macedonian Ambassador to Japan wants to boost academic ties between the two countries
Andrijana Cvetkovik, Macedonia's Ambassador to Japan, says she hopes to expand academic cooperation with Japan, in addition to the agreements it already has with about 10 Japanese universities on student and professor exchanges and scholarships. Several years ago "I received a scholarship from the Japanese ...
