Rishiri Fuji from a Ferry
As a follow up to my posts a few days ago, this article appeared in today via Kyodo News. This time they have provided a bit more detail in their article.
Regional governments are offering bloggers special tour packages in exchange for getting the word out about their local attractions.
Often sponsored by regional tourist associations, the tours tend to be extremely cheap because there is a string attached: that participants post the details of their trips on their blogs.
Source: JapanToday
The article states that a number of Prefectures including Niigata-ken, Gifu Prefecture and the town of Amacho, Shimane Prefecture, sponsor similar tours.
The Niigata Prefectural Tourist Association has been sponsoring tours targeting bloggers outside the prefecture since 2007. Participants pay only their transportation fees.
The bloggers are fed seafood and local farm produce and are taken around to the prefecture’s major scenic locales.
Sounds like Japan may have discovered that first hand knowledge and timely delivery of information over the internet can encourage others to travel.
I wonder freedom the writers have to blog honestly about their experience. If they have a bad trip would they write about that?
If foreigners approached the Tourist Boards I wonder what the response would be? Has anyone tried?
Here is the original post from Tourist Blog Power
and the follow up post from Keeping Twitter up-dated
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I have lived and worked in Japan for the past twenty five years off and on. I have seen many changes and enjoyed the various paradoxes and anomalies of everyday Japanese living.
Please keep updating on this. I would totally take days off and go on a video-blog adventure if it was sponsored. But I’m curious about those freedoms too. I met a Korean blogger recently (ever4one) who got an all-expense, no-strings-attached trip to Australia from Samsung in exchange for blogging. He said there were no rules at all – just have fun and blog about it.
Further update on Tourists blogging for perks in Japan http://bit.ly/44o2wJ
This comment was originally posted on Twitter