kimonobox.com » tourist http://kimonobox.com Japan at its best Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:56:43 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Japan Bloggers get perks ? http://kimonobox.com/post/en/1429/japan-bloggers-get-perks/ http://kimonobox.com/post/en/1429/japan-bloggers-get-perks/#comments Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:28:48 +0000 kimonobox http://www.kimonobox.com/?p=1429 Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]>

Rishiri Fuji from a Ferry
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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]]> http://kimonobox.com/post/en/1429/japan-bloggers-get-perks/feed/ 5 Tourist Blog Power http://kimonobox.com/post/en/1180/tourist-blog-power/ http://kimonobox.com/post/en/1180/tourist-blog-power/#comments Tue, 16 Jun 2009 02:26:20 +0000 kimonobox http://www.kimonobox.com/?p=1180 Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]>

I was interested to hear that Japanese regional governments are offering bloggers special tour packages in exchange for blogging favourably about the local tourist sites.

Rishiri Fuji from a Ferry
Rishiri Fuji from a Ferry

In the town of Rishirifuji on Rishiri Island, west of Wakkanai, Hokkaido, The Japan Times reported that the tourist association sponsored a three-day tour, including transportation and lodging.

The condition was that the participants would blog about their experiences.

Rishirifuji is a long way north, but has quite a lot of google blog traffic.
Is this because they have enticed a lot of bloggers? It certainly looks very beautiful and rugged.

In the prefectures of Niigata, Gifu and Shimane, the Tourist Associations are also supposedly targeting bloggers. According to the article, it sounds like bloggers are being fed with local delicacies for strong reviews.

So far I have not had this pleasure – so I think I will go to twitter to find out more.

Has anyone approached the tourist associations in their local area to try this out I wonder?

Can I link to someones blog who has blogged for a Japanese tourist association and received free transportation or food as a result of their work perhaps?

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