Monitoring nature-based tourism trends in Japan’s national parks: Mixed messages from domestic and inbound visitors

Abstract

Nature-based tourism (NBT), including visits to protected areas such as national parks, is said to rank among the tourism sector’s fastest growing segments. However, protected area visitation statistics can be inaccurate or unreliable, leading to mixed messages when trends are extrapolated to national level. This paper examines one such case using empirical evidence to investigate the reported decline in visits to Japan’s national parks. First, trends in domestic and international visitors are examined at the national level. Next, the case study of Kamikochi in the Japan Alps is introduced to assess challenges in monitoring emerging NBT segments, epitomized here by inbound visitors. Findings suggest that current monitoring methods are not yet sufficient to track visitor diversification, resulting in underreported segments such as inbound visitors whose profiles and behaviour differs from conventional domestic NBT. However, the Ministry of Environment, which administers Japan’s national parks, is aware of the increasingly heterogeneous visitor spectrum, and taking steps to track the evolving range of variables that shape visitation by examining domestic and international visitors at national and local levels. This study’s twin-segment approach uses multiple-scale case studies to revisit the debate over improved visitation data. Lessons learned from visit trends in Japan’s national parks underline the importance of targeted monitoring of segments due to changes in NBT demand.