Paper short abstract:

Through analyzing tourist-directed media portrayals of Japan and its empire, as well as government archive materials, the paper will explore notions of hospitality by examining how Japanese state and other actors worked to attract, or alternatively to deter, international tourists in the 1930s.

Paper long abstract:

As recent debates about "overtourism" suggest, the reception of tourists is intertwined with tensions between "hospitality" and "inhospitality." This is seen in contemporary Japan, where terms such as "tourism pollution" (観光公害) have become established in mainstream discourse while the national government continues efforts to maintain international tourist growth at record high levels (Milne, 2017; Sataki, 2019). Similar dissonance was evident in Japan in the 1930s, in which discord emerged between those who sought to encourage inbound tourism in order to attract foreign currency and improve the image of the Japanese empire abroad (Elliott, 2019), and others who suspected tourism for facilitating espionage and international protest against Japan's military and imperial expansion. This tension, for example, is evident in conflict between those who lobbied successfully for the 1940 Olympics to be held in Tokyo, and those who brought about its forfeiture in 1938 (Collins, 2007).

Through analyzing media portrayals of Japan and its empire directed at tourists, as well as news and government archive materials, the presenter will explore why and how Japanese state and other actors worked to attract, or alternatively to deter, international tourists in the 1930s. Through this, it will explore how government and related organizations welcome visitors as part of so-called "soft power" cultural diplomacy, or conversely, vilify and block inbound tourists as undesirable witnesses, a hostile and threatening presence, or a "polluting" influence on local society.