Poster Presentation (Core time: 11:45-12:45)

[1R04] Smart Tourism of Japan for After COVID-19 Era: A Comparative Study among European and Asian Counties

*Ningxin ZHU¹ (1. Ritsumeikan University)

Keywords:smart tourism destinations, best practices, smart cities, Digitalization

Many Japanese tourist destinations are facing a critical situation due to the decrease in the number of foreign visitors to Japan during the outbreak of the COVID-19. Under these circumstances, smart tourism is expected to be a means to revitalize tourism. For example, VR(Vertical Reality)and AR(Augmented Reality)technologies can be used to promote tourist attractions to the world and provide virtual trips. In Europe in particular, smart tourism is being actively promoted on an EU-wide scale and in Japan, tourism services are being offered to foreign tourists through the transmission of VR images and the use of applications. Further development of smart tourism as part of future inbound measures and to stimulate demand for visits to Japan, will be effective in attracting inbound tourists.In the early 2020s, much of the world was stalled by COVID-19. The pandemic had a dramatic impact on the movement of people, including intensive lockdowns, border blockades, and bans on domestic and international travel. Tourism, especially destinations that need it to survive, especially places with cultural heritage attractions. Cultural heritage is an important carrier of national culture, and digital technology can provide new opportunities for creative transformation and innovative development of cultural heritage. At present, the digitization of cultural heritage in Japan is still in its initial stage, and the high cost and difficulty of digitization, the lack of expressive immersive experience, and the poor understandings of digital properties are important bottlenecks that limit the integration of cultural heritage and digital technology. In this paper, we selected successful cases in European countries and analyzed them to gain the perspective for improving the digitization of cultural heritage in Japan. Through the analysis of these cases, we found that the development of the multiple values of cultural heritage and the path of active utilization of cultural heritage increased the number of the visitors.