Japan’s shrinking population has weighed on the world’s third-biggest economy, alarmed government forecasters and turned some rural communities into veritable ghost towns.
Not so in Niseko, a ski resort community on the nation’s mountainous, northern island of Hokkaido that’s prospering in the face of all the demographic gloom.
The local government has embraced immigration in a way the national government hasn’t. The area’s booming economy has spurred investment in luxury hotels, restaurants, and shops--and attracted local and expat workers who’ve become full-time residents. Niseko’s population grew 2.9 percent last year to 4,952 compared with 2010 levels, the highest mark in four decades. Nationwide, the population slid 0.7 percent over the same period.
“There haven’t been any other towns that have been this successful before,” said Tatsuya Wakao, a consultant at Fujitsu Research Institute. "They did a good job in recognizing the need for foreign tourism."
Snow Mecca
True, not every rural community is blessed with the ski slopes and hot springs that Niseko enjoys. Should the town’s much larger neighbor Sapporo win its bid to host the Winter Olympics in 2026, Niseko would host the Alpine events for the games and enjoy an economic windfall.
That said, other Japanese ski resorts and tourism centers have fallen on hard times and Niseko offers broader lessons to all struggling rural towns about the power of savvy and sustained marketing as a rising middle class in Asia broadens the region’s tourism opportunities.
Seiji Ohsaka, who served as mayor of Niseko from 1994 to 2005, realized early on that he needed to turn his town into a must-see resort destination. He dispatched staff to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Vail, Colorado, to talk up Niseko and study competitors. As a result, the number of visitors during the ski season has surged in the past six years--and last year hit a record 811,000 visitors.
“I knew it would be impossible to turn around the domestic market, which is why I sent staff overseas on promotions,” says Ohsaka. “I opened their eyes to the outside world. You can’t only know your own town if you want to be a tourist destination.”
The intelligence gathering paid off. The number of foreign tourists has increased more than 10-fold over the past 11 years. The majority of tourists last year were drawn from Asia, led by Hong Kong, with about 35,000, followed by China with around 30,000, then Taiwan and Australia.