Terrie's Take 822 (Tourism Edition) -- Using Movies as a Tourist Magnet

[Terrie's Take]

* * * * * * * * TERRIE'S (TOURISM) TAKE - BY TERRIE LLOYD * * * * * *
A bi-weekly focused look at the tourism sector in Japan, by Terrie 
Lloyd, a long-term technology and media entrepreneur living in Japan.
(http://www.terrielloyd.com)

Tourism Sector Edition Sunday, Oct 04, 2015, Issue No. 822

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+++ Using Movies as a Tourist Magnet

In this age of the Internet, there is still nothing more powerful in our 
grab bag of popular culture and entertainment media than movies (OK, 
including TV soaps and specials). Spotify, LINE, and Youtube are all 
great, but it's movies with inspired plots and professional production 
levels that can actually move the hearts of audiences and impress upon 
them a message or cause that they previously had no exposure to.

Here in Japan there are roughly 550 movies (2012 numbers) produced and 
released every year -- which is an impressive number, and exceeds the 
almost 430 western movies released annually. Unfortunately, most of 
those Japanese movies are targeted at local consumers, and have 
hard-to-translate concepts and styles that makes them difficult to 
export, even with dubbing/voiceovers. But there are exceptions, and one 
studio that has transcended local consumer thinking and has gone global 
is animation-focused Studio Ghibli.

I recently saw the movie "When Marnie Was There" ("Omoide no Marnie") 
with my kids. It's a shame that this is probably the studio's last 
movie, as "Marnie" is a sophisticated piece of animation that is right 
up there in terms of originality with My Neighbor Toto, Princess 
Mononoke, and Spirited Away. The movie was set in Hokkaido, in a 
relatively real location near Kushiro. After watching it the entire 
family felt a powerful urge to go out and book a trip to that very 
place, to see if there really is a derelict mansion on the other side of 
the marshes across from Kushiro (or Akkeshi-ko, which is a more likely 
setting).

This desire to relive or explore the location for a deeply moving film 
is of course a well-known marketing mechanism used by small towns and 
cities all over the world. Some examples of previously unknown locations 
becoming must-see ones for foreign tourists include the slums of Dharavi 
(Mumbai), Asia's largest slum, which received exposure through Slumdog 
Millionaire; New Zealand's North Island farming town of Matamata which 
was the location for Hobbiton and was featured in a decade's worth of 
Lord of the Rings movies and sequels; and Sweden's bohemian district of 
Södermalm, which was ground zero for Stieg Larsson's Girl with the 
Dragon Tattoo and other Millennium books.

[Continued below...]

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What's surprising, though is that even though armed with the mystique 
created by the Marnie movie, Kushiro doesn't seem to have taken much 
advantage of it. I could find nothing on the web to indicate any kind of 
tourism activity other than one little page on their Japanese site: 
http://bit.ly/1PXW6QB. Maybe I missed it, or maybe they just don't have 
any commercial sense. In any case, there is certainly nothing in English 
to inspire hoards of foreign fans to descend on the place and spend a 
few tourist dollars.

But while the elders of Kushiro seem clueless, other locations around 
Japan are more aware of the power of a well-told story, and are either 
providing access to locations for movie makers as a way to tap future 
audiences, or they are actually paying the producers to have movies made 
that will incorporate them. We think this is a powerful idea, and one 
that destinations with not many distinguishing features can use.

One such destination which is a nice but nondescript steel town is 
Kitakyushu. I know this city better than most because my wife comes from 
the area, and we get back there regularly to visit family. It will be 
interesting to see how a recent initiative will play out, whereby the 
City of Kitakyushu has decided to sponsor a Thai TV science fiction 
drama called "Devil Lover". The drama is set in Thailand's provincial 
port of Rayong, and apparently Kitakyushu's industrial skyline (lots of 
smoke stacks, believe me) is reminiscent of Rayong's. Kitakyushu plunged 
into the project after learning that Thai tourists to Fukuoka had 
increased a surprising 90% after seeing a love-tragedy drama called "Kol 
Kimono" ("Kimono's Trap") which was filmed in Saga and Kitakyushu. [Ed: 
In case you're wondering, the Thai tourists were arriving in Fukuoka 
instead of Kitakyushu after Kol Kimono, it's because the city is served 
by Thai Airways and Kitakyushu is not.]

Another good example of a powerful movie pulling in foreign travelers is 
"Kano", which covers the true story of a baseball team from Taiwan 
playing in the Summer Koshien high school baseball tournament back in 
the 1930's when Taiwan was still under Japanese rule. Exceeding all 
expectations, the rookies from the Chiayi School of Agriculture in 
Taiwan actually managed to make it all the way to the finals. The movie 
was a huge hit, winning the Taipei Film Festival Audience Choice Award 
in 2014. After it was released the number of Taiwanese tourists visiting 
the Hanshin Koshien Stadium Museum in Hyogo-ken rose from just a few 
people a year to more than 3,000 over 9 months last year.

Not every location works as a magnet for dedicated fans, though. For 
example, in researching this article, we wanted to know where the farm 
shoot-out scene for Ridley Scott's 1989 cult classic "Black Rain" was. 
You'll remember that the movie, which gets 2 and a half stars on Rotten 
Tomatoes, featured Michael Douglas as an American detective sent to 
Japan to extradite a Yakuza back to the USA. The movie was shot mostly 
in Osaka over Scott's original preference for Tokyo after Osaka got him 
his filming permits. The problem is that a lot of the places that 
existed in 1989 have already disappeared as Osaka has rebuilt itself -- 
a common problem in any Japanese major city. For example, Shinsaibashi 
is gone (moved) and so is Kirin Plaza, and the 43-year old Hankyu Umeda 
station Terminal Building is likely to be replaced soon as well.

As to where the farm shoot-out was held, in fact, not in Japan at all. 
Apparently the Japanese immigration authorities kicked the film crew out 
of the country because their visas were expiring, and they saw little 
need to renew them. So the scene was instead shot in Napa valley. Ridley 
Scott was furious and vowed never to make another movie in Japan.


...The information janitors/

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Details: Complete event details at http://www.icajapan.jp/

Date: Wednesday, October 15th, 2015
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RSVP: By 1pm on Monday October 12th, 2015. Venue is The Foreign 
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