Details of the Initiative
A team of students in Kidera Hajime’s seminar entered the 2020 College Student Tourism Town Planning Contest organized by the College Student Tourism Town Planning Contest Operation Council (secretariat: JTB Corp. and Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc.) and sponsored by the Japan Tourism Agency and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. It chose the theme of Sustainable Tourism Town Planning by Utilizing the Tsukuba Kasumigaura Ring-Ring Road, for which Namegata City and Kamisu City, Ibaraki are recommended municipalities. Among the Meiji University teams that chose that theme, only that team went on to the finals. It gave a presentation and won the Namegata Mayor Prize.
― The Plan proposes tourism town planning which includes contents consistent with a total of ten of the 17 SDGs, based on the directivity of the Japan Sustainable Tourism Standard for Destinations announced by the Japan Tourism Agency in June 2020.
― It aptly understands local resources (e.g. a certification of a Millennium Village and local foodstuffs) and local problems (e.g. the low level of regional economic circulation, the degree of recognition of local history and culture, and the present situation of water quality and catches) and incorporates an element of ethical tourism, such as activities to improve water quality, as a solution for the problems, with a full understanding of the needs for ethical consumption in recent years. In the plan, a large-scale survey is conducted to carry out statistical verification to make the plan a truly sustainable one.
