Touris and poverty alleviation in nature conservation areas a juxtaposition between japan and vietnam m a

Doctoral Thesis Tourism and Poverty Alleviation in Nature Conservation Areas: A Juxtaposition between Japan and Vietnam Nguyen Van Hoang Division of Integrated Arts and Sciences Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences Hiroshima University September 2019 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to my primary supervisor, Prof Carolin Funck for accepting to supervise me, her high responsible guidance and constructive advice were invaluable Special thanks and appreciation also go to my cosupervisors, Prof Junyi Zhang, Prof Koki Seki, Prof Toshihisa Asano, and Prof Itaru Nagasaka for their insightful feedback I would also like to thank all the staff of Taoyaka Program and Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences for their responsibility and support during my study in Hiroshima University I specially acknowledge Taoyaka Program, Hiroshima University for providing a full scholarship, without which my study could not have been possible I appreciate all the people who helped me during the fieldwork in both case studies of Japan and Vietnam, without their support and cooperation, my study could not have been fulfilled I am also thankful to my colleagues in the seminar at Hiroshima University, and whom in my working place at University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City for their companion during my PhD journey Last but not least, I am indebted to my wife and daughter, without their unconditional love and sacrifice, my study in Japan could not have been completed ii ABSTRACT This research examines the interrelationship between the tourism and poverty nexus in two countries, Japan and Vietnam, particularly focused on nature conservation areas It argues that although tourism has often been linked with poverty through the concept of pro-poor tourism (PPT), limited research has investigated this from different perspectives of developed and developing countries where may suffer different types of poverty, that could be absolute or relative poverty On the one hand, tourism may contribute positively to poverty alleviation, on the other hand, it may impact negatively to inequality of income distribution during its growth process Little is also discussed about the perspectives of local people with regard to tourism in nature conservation areas, whose voices may influence the success of conservation outcomes This is particularly important for both developed and developing economies such as Japan and Vietnam which are suffering with different types of poverty issues Taking two case studies – Yakushima, a natural world heritage site (NWHS) and Cu Lao Cham, a marine protected area (MPA) as the two particular nature conservation areas, this research seeks to answer three main questions: (1) How local people perceive tourism’s impact on poverty alleviation in the case of Cu Lao Cham? (2) How local tourism enterprises perceive tourism’s impact on income distribution and spatial tourism development in the case of Yakushima? and (3) What are the barriers for poverty alleviation or mitigation of income inequality in Japan and Vietnam? This research utilized both qualitative and quantitative methods for data collection and analysis A survey was administered with 205 local people in Cu Lao Cham Interviews were conducted with 32 and 41 local tourism enterprises in Yakushima and Cu Lao Cham, respectively It indicated that the people in both cases perceived positively the impact of tourism to their lives and the local economies In the case of Cu Lao Cham, locals’ perceptions regarding tourism and poverty alleviation are more clearly reflected However, in the case of Yakushima, tourism growth may not necessarily contribute to equal income distribution and is perceived as creating a gap between tourist villages and non-tourist villages At the same time, the people in both case studies also felt the inequalities of income distribution not only between local tourism stakeholders on the islands but also between locals and non-locals who come from the mainland In addition, in the case of Cu Lao Cham, tension and disagreements with iii regard to uneven tourism benefit distribution happened among various tourism participants In terms of barriers to tourism participation, local people in Cu Lao Cham also faced a number of critical challenges in which the lack of knowledge and skills, insufficient financial capital, and market access appear as the most critical obstacles Furthermore, the research findings in both cases are consistent with the aim of PPT concept that tourism is not only generating economic benefits but also creating effects from social and cultural aspects (i.e., lifestyle aspect in the case of Yakushima and gender aspect in the case of Cu Lao Cham) Above mentioned insights of those people (both positive and negative ways) may have an effect on the conservation outcomes of the two case study areas as there is a strong relation between tourism growth and its impacts on local people residing with (in) these nature conservation areas This research also confirmed again the importance of local people’s perceptions regarding not only tourism and poverty alleviation overall as some previous research supported but also in the relation to tourism and conservation goals Once the insights of local people have been deeply understood and their attitudes tended to support tourism development in nature conservation areas, the goals of sustainable tourism development in these special settings are more likely to be achieved iv TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF TABLES x LIST OF FIGURES xi PAPERS PUBLISHED FROM THIS RESEARCH xii ABBREVIATIONS xiii CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the research 1.2 Problem statements 1.3 Research objectives 1.4 Research significance 1.5 Structure of thesis CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Understanding poverty 2.2.1 The brief evolution of poverty concept 2.2.2 Poverty in absolute terms 10 2.2.3 Poverty in relative terms 10 2.2.4 Poverty approached in this study 11 2.3 Tourism for poverty alleviation: a positive perspective 11 2.4 Tourism for poverty alleviation: a critical perspective 13 v 2.5 Tourism in nature conservation areas 16 2.6 Perceptions of tourism and poverty alleviation 18 2.7 Chapter summary 19 CHAPTER 21 TOURISM DEVELOPMENT AND POVERTY SITUATION 21 3.1 Introduction 21 3.2 Tourism development and Poverty in Vietnam 21 3.2.1 Tourism development: an overview 21 3.2.1.1 History of tourism development 21 3.2.1.2 Tourism development in nature conservation areas 28 3.2.2 Poverty in Vietnam 30 3.2.3 Tourism policies and poverty alleviation 33 3.3 Tourism development and Poverty in Japan 38 3.3.1 Tourism development: an overview 38 3.3.2 Poverty in Japan 46 3.3.3 Tourism policies in Japan 47 3.3.3.1 The development of tourism policies in Japan 47 3.3.3.2 The framework of tourism policy in Modern Japan 49 3.4 Chapter summary 51 CHAPTER 52 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 52 4.1 Introduction 52 4.2 Qualitative approach 52 4.3 Case study approach 53 4.3.1 An overview of case study approach 53 4.3.2 Criteria for selecting the study sites 54 4.4 Data collection methods 56 4.4.1 Secondary data 56 4.4.2 Primary data 57 4.4.2.1 Participant observation 58 4.4.2.2 Questionnaire survey 59 vi 4.4.2.3 Semi-structured interview 60 4.5 Data analysis 63 4.5.1 Quantitative data analysis 63 4.5.2 Qualitative data analysis 64 4.6 Ethical considerations 64 4.7 Chapter summary 65 CHAPTER 66 CASE STUDIES OF YAKUSHIMA AND CU LAO CHAM 66 5.1 Introduction 66 5.2 Yakushima - the case study area 66 5.2.1 Overview of Yakushima 66 5.2.2 Tourism development 68 5.2.3 Economic situation in Yakushima 73 5.2.4 Regulations of NWHS in Yakushima 78 5.3 Cu Lao Cham - the case study area 81 5.3.1 Overview of Cu Lao Cham 81 5.3.2 Tourism development 82 5.3.3 Economic situation in Cu Lao Cham 83 5.3.4 Regulations of MPA in Cu Lao Cham 89 5.5 Chapter summary 94 CHAPTER 95 RESULTS – INTERVIEWS IN YAKUSHIMA 95 6.1 Introduction 95 6.2 Interview respondents’ profiles 95 6.3 Perceptions of tourism’s impact 97 6.4 Perceptions of income distribution 101 6.5 Perceptions of spatial differences of tourism’s impact 104 6.6 Discussion 105 vii 6.7 Chapter summary 107 CHAPTER 108 RESULTS – QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY AND INTERVIEWS 108 7.1 Introduction 108 7.2 Results from the questionnaire 109 7.2.1 Survey respondents’ characteristics 109 7.2.2 Respondents’ living conditions 110 7.2.3 Perceptions of the importance of tourism 115 7.2.4 Perceptions of barriers to tourism participation 117 7.2.5 Satisfaction level of tourism development 119 7.2.6 Perceptions of tourism as a tool of poverty reduction 123 7.2.7 Additional statistical test 127 7.3 Results from the interviews 131 7.3.1 Interview respondents’ demographics 131 7.3.2 Tourism’s contribution to respondents’ lives and the local economy 136 7.3.3 Tourism income distribution and disagreements 139 7.3.4 Barriers to tourism participation 144 7.4 Discussion 149 7.5 Chapter summary 151 CHAPTER 153 A COMPARISON OF TWO CASE STUDIES’ RESULTS 153 Introduction 153 8.2 Tourism’s policies 153 8.3 Perceptions of tourism’s contribution 154 8.4 Perceptions of tourism and income distribution 155 8.5 Barriers to tourism participation and poverty alleviation 156 8.6 Creating a new concept of pro-poor tourism 158 8.7 Chapter summary 159 viii CHAPTER 160 CONCLUSION AND FUTURE RESEARCH 160 9.1 Introduction 160 9.2 Summary of research findings 160 9.3 Contribution of this research 162 9.4 Limitations of the research 164 9.5 Future research 166 9.6 Concluding remarks 166 REFERENCES 168 APPENDICES 185 ix LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 The development of poverty concept and its measurements Table 3.1 International arrivals 1990-1999 26 Table 3.2 Vietnam’s poverty rate by residence and by region 2006-2016 32 Table 3.3 Tourism development policies, strategies, and plans 34 Table 4.1 List of interviews will be provided in Chapters & 63 Table 5.1 Trends in GDP in Yakushima 2004-2014 74 Table 5.2 Trends in Population Working by Industry 75 Table 5.3 Trends in Poverty Rate between Kagoshima and Nationwide 75 Table 5.4 The Distribution of Residents, Households and Tourism facilities by Village 76 Table 5.5 Outline of the policies surrounding the Yakushima World Heritage Area 79 Table 5.6 Zones in the Cu Lao Cham MPA management structure 90 Table 5.7 Prohibited activities within the Cu Lao Cham MPA and associated zones 91 Table 5.8 Comparing case studies: Yakushima and Cu Lao Cham 93 Table 6.1 Interview respondents’ profiles 97 Table 7.1 Survey respondents’ characteristics 110 Table 7.2 Barriers to participation in tourism services 118 Table 7.3 Respondents’ tourism related jobs 119 Table 7.4 Difficulty in participating in tourism services 120 Table 7.5 Living condition changed since participating in tourism 121 Table 7.6 Satisfaction of the outcomes of the livelihood change project of MPA 122 Table 7.7 Perceptions of tourism as tool of poverty reduction 125 Table 7.8 Five most responses of perceived poverty 126 Table 7.9 Four most recommendations for tourism development 126 Table 7.10 Crosstabulation between gender and current job of respondents 128 Table 7.11 Pearson Chi-square test results 128 Table 7.12 Crosstabulation between respondent group and the reason of more income 129 Table 7.13 Crosstabulation between respondent group and the reason of not allowed 129 Table 7.14 Crosstabulation between respondent group and the reason of tourists increase 130 Table 7.15 Crosstabulation between respondent group and local people’s desire 130 Table 7.16 Full breakdown of interviewees’ demographics 133 Table 7.17 Summary of perceived impacts of tourism to respondents’ lives 147 Table 7.18 Summary of perceived income distribution and disagreements 148 Table 7.19 Summary of perceived barriers to tourism participation 148 x - 214 Appendix 5a Topics and questions interviewed in Cu Lao Cham – English Respondents’ demographic information Basic information of the interviewees: name, age, gender, marital status, number of children (if appropriate), type of tourism’s participation, length of participation, educational level, house ownership, monthly income, residency Local perceptions of tourism as a means of poverty alleviation - How long have you been participating in tourism activities? Why are you participating the tourism activities? - Do you consider yourself belonging as poor people? Reason? - What you think about poverty? - If you are not poor about income, what are the other aspects of poverty in your life? - Are you satisfied with your current income? If not, why? - Since you are participating in tourism, is your income improved or not? Why? - In general, your living condition is getting better, worse or the same since involving in tourism - Are you satisfied with tourism development in Cu Lao Cham (CLC) or not? Why? - How does tourism contribute to local economy/employment and poverty reduction in CLC? What are the positive and negative effects of tourism development to your living condition? What are the positive and negative effects of marine protected area (MPA) project on your living condition? If you have changed your job after the establishment of the MPA, what are the reasons? What you think about tourism as an alternative livelihood for poverty reduction in CLC? Who have been the main beneficiaries of tourism benefit? Reason? Do you think there are the poor people on the island? Barriers to local participation in tourism What are the barriers for participation in tourism (before, during participating and after) why? What are the barriers that you have found? (barriers from yourself, market access, or policies, etc.) The barriers from regulations from MPA/ regulations from tourism management board/tourism organization, etc.? How to mitigate the above-mentioned barriers? What are the problems of improving poverty alleviation via tourism? In general, in order to tourism contributes to poverty alleviation, you have any suggestions? Do you support tourism as an alternative livelihood for the current and future industry on the island? 215 Appendix 5b Topics and questions interviewed in Cu Lao Cham – Vietnamese Thông tin người vấn Tên Tuổi Giới/ hộn nhân Số Loại hình kinh doanh chính/hoạt động du lịch Thời gian sống đảo Tự kinh doanh/tham gia doanh nghiệp Trình độ học vấn Nhận thức du lịch xói đói giảm nghèo Anh chị tham gia vào hoạt động du lịch lâu chưa sao; Anh chị có coi người nghèo khơng? Vì sao? Thế gọi nghèo, Và anh chị khơng nghèo thu nhập nghèo khía cạnh sống ? Thu nhập khoảng tháng, anh chị có hài lịng với mức thu nhập khơng? Vì sao? Từ làm du lịch thu nhập anh chị có cải thiện khơng sao; Nhìn chung sống anh chị trở nên tốt hơn, xấu hơn, hay cũ tham gia vào du lịch; Nhìn chung anh chị có hài lịng với phát triển du lịch không sao? 216 Sở hữu (nhà, ghe, xe) Du lịch đóng góp cho kinh tế/việc làm xóa đói giảm nghèo địa phương, cho ví dụ 10 Theo anh chị tác động tích cực/tiêu cực du lịch đời sống gì? Ví dụ? 11 Từ thành lập khu bảo tồn biển, anh chị có thấy tác động (tích cực/tiêu cực) đến điều kiện sống ko? Cho ví dụ? 12 Anh chị có thay đổi cơng việc từ khu bảo tồn biển thành lập không? Nếu có sao? 13 Anh chị nghĩ việc chọn du lịch sinh kế thay cho khu bảo tồn biển CLC? 14 Theo anh chị nhóm (gợi ý) hưởng lợi hoạt động du lịch đảo? sao? 15 Theo anh chị, đảo có người nghèo khơng? Nếu có lại nghĩ vậy? Những trở ngại/khó khăn tham gia du lịch Những khó khăn/rào cản gặp phải (trước tham gia du lịch trình tham gia) sao; Các rào cản thân anh chị hay từ thị trường, sách, làm để xóa bỏ khó khăn đó? Các rào cản chẳng hạn quy định từ MPA/quy định từ ban quản lý du lịch/tổ chức du lịch, có hay khơng? Vd: người dân địa phương khơng phép trực tiếp đón khách từ đất liền đảo Làm để xố bỏ khó khăn đó? Những vấn đề gặp phải việc cải thiện nghèo đói thơng qua hoạt động du lịch gì? Nhìn chung để du lịch góp phần xố đói giảm nghèo anh chị có đề xuất khơng Anh chị có ủng hộ việc chọn du lịch ngành cho phát triển kinh tế CLC ko? Hết_Xin cám ơn anh/chị 217 Appendix Information about the interview in Yakushima Dear Interviewees, We are students from the Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences at Hiroshima University majoring in tourism studies We apologize for interrupting your time, but we would like to get your permission to participate in an interview on tourism in Yakushima This interview is intended to help us understand your opinions and concerns about tourism here Your input is highly valuable for improving the services provided on the island The interview is identified and the time required to is approximately hour We appreciate if you would allow us to audio-record your interview However, this is not required and you may choose to reject it if you feel uncomfortable We confirm that all responses in this interview will be kept strictly confidential The data are reported only in aggregate form or in a manner that does not allow individual responses to be identified Thank you If you have any questions about this survey, please contact: Address: Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences Hiroshima University 1-7-1 Kagamiyama Higashihiroshima-shi Hiroshima, 7398521 JAPAN Prof Carolin FUNCK, Ph.D Email: funckc@hiroshima-u.ac.jp Nguyen Van Hoang (Ph.D student) Email: ngvanhoang@hiroshima-u.ac.jp 218 「観光が地域経済に及ぼす効果についての研究」の説明書 広島大学大学院総合科学研究科 博士課程後期１年 ホアン グエンバン 私はベトナムからの留学生のホアン・グエンバンと申します。現在、広島大学大学院総合科学研 究科に所属し、観光学を学んでいます。本調査は自身の博士論文の研究の一部として実施させてい ただきます。下記の研究の目的や実施内容等をご理解いただき、本研究にご協力いただきますよう お願いいたします。 研究の意義・目的 本研究は、屋久島において観光が地域経済や住民の方の生活にどのような効果を与えているのか を明らかにすることを目的として実施いたします。この研究によって、屋久島においてより良い観 光を行っていくための提案ができればと思っております。 研究方法 本研究では、通訳を通じて 30 分程度のインタビューをさせていただきます。よろしければ、イン タビュー内容はボイスレコーダーで録音し、逐語録を作成して分析いたします。録音が難しい場合 は、メモを取ることで対応いたします。 研究への協力と撤回について 研究の趣旨をご理解いただきご協力いただくようにお願いいたします。説明を聞いた上でお断り いただいても問題ありません。また、インタビューの途中で辞退することも可能です。その際には、 それまでに収集したデータを分析対象としてよいのか、廃棄を希望されるのかをお聞かせいただけ れば、それに従ってデータを取り扱います。 研究成果の公表の可能性 本研究の成果は、博士論文としてまとめるとともに、学会にて発表を行う予定です。論文や発表 ではお名前や勤務先などの情報は一切公表せず、個人が特定できない表記にいたします。 守秘や個人情報、研究データの取り扱いについて 本研究でお話しいただいた内容、逐語録を研究目的以外に用いることはなく、守秘をお約束いた します。また、個人情報を保護するため、逐語録のお名前は研究データから取り除き、符号に置き 換えて管理いたします。ボイスレコーダーの録音データは、逐語録を作成しましたら廃棄いたしま す。 研究者、および問い合わせ先について 本研究は、広島大学大学院総合科学研究科・博士課程後期１年のグエンバン・ホアンが行ないま す。研究内容に関するご質問は、以下の連絡先までご連絡ください。 研究者： ホアン グエンバン（広島大学大学院総合科学研究科・博士課程後期１年） 住所 〒739-8521 広島県東広島市鏡山 1-7-1 連絡先 email: ngvanhoang@hiroshima-u.ac.jp 電話番号: 090-9462-2207 指導教員： フンク カロリン（広島大学大学院総合科学研究科 教授） 219 Appendix A report of onsite team project (This is part of Taoyaka Program where the author studied and fulfilled its requirement) 220 TAOYAKA PROGRAM For creating a flexible, enduring, peaceful society Onsite Team Project (Individual Report) Fostering Rural Revitalization in Nijo by Sixth Industry Student No D164386 Name: Nguyen Van Hoang Cultural Creation Course 221 Content Background of project My role in the project My work related to project Before starting project • Project implementation • Mid-term implementation • Final-term implementation Outcomes and lessons learned Acknowledgement References 222 Background of project: Nowadays, rural mountainous areas in Japan are facing with various kinds of problems such as depopulation, aging population, wild animal attacks, etc These problems were caused by the decline of rural main industries, loss of self-government by the big merger, its remoteness to urban areas, etc Especially, Chugoku mountainous region is one of the most severe areas which is suffered from these problems Figure Change of Population in Nijo Figure Change of aging rate in Nijo One of the reasons for this is that there is no good job opportunity and lack of local resources to make a living So most of residents are working in urban areas, and young people tend to go out to get better jobs This situation is caused by its less economic opportunity and inconvenient living condition, such as lack of transportation, clinic and shops Also, recently, wild animal damages are one of the big problems for Japanese rural farmers According to Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, its financial damage was 17.6 billion and 500,000 tons of agricultural products were wasted in 2016 This will cause more agricultural decline and, at present, there is no good way to solve this problem Current Situation and problems of Nijo Nijo, a small district located near Masuda City, Shimane Prefecture, shares these characteristics The population of Nijo in 2016 is about 565 people (Male: 263, Female: 302) and ageing rate is 48.5% As this number shows, this area is also suffered from ageing and depopulation (Figure.1 and 2) In this situation which is similar to other Japanese rural areas, local people in Nijo already have tried some activities, such as building selfgovernance organization (Nijo Community Association), Sixth industry, rural tourism and mapping of wild animals Problems of wild animals: Recently, local people in Nijo are facing with the problems of wild animals Wild animals damage the lives and agriculture activity of local residents In 2016, there were 200 reports of the wild animals damage by raccoons, but this year, that damage is caused by bears and monkey became a major problem for local people So they have tried to grasp where they tend to appear by mapping from more than 200 eyewitness reports 223 Some wild animals such as black bear, wild boar, monkey, raccoon attack human agricultural products seriously In which wild boars are normally an obstacle for agriculture, they didn’t threat as usual in this year, because of increasing bears However, even if its number is less than before, wild boar’s damage to agriculture is still a big problem and maybe they will be big problem again in the upcoming years When they come into paddy fields to play with mad, ears of rice become to give off a stench by their body smells and farmers can’t sell such rice They easily to come into paddy fields by breaking the fence to prevent them According to the owner of the wild animal meat shop in Nijo, recently, behavior of the wild boar is changing because hunter tend to take babies of wild animals which is easier to catch However, this has caused the increase of breeding season and decreased the weight of female wild boars This declined the amount of meat and also will damage the biodiversity Lack of capitals In the discussion with local people, they mentioned about the lack of resources in Nijo to attract new commers Actually, there are some local raw products, for example, egoma, tomatoes and rice But it’s still not enough to attract more people coming to business and these local products are not known well This situation is also not good for local people to keep local identity So some of them feel that they may need to develop new things such as new local products or tourism and doing more advertisement Actually, two agricultural cooperatives are making local products One is “Yokoo Emon” which is making dry tomatoes, roast meat source, etc Another one, Asaka agricultural cooperative, is making Egoma oil However, these producers not have a common platform or space to promote and sell their products in Nijo Also they don’t any advertisement for people from outside Potentiality of Rural Tourism development in Nijo Although Nijo possesses a few tourism spots, it has some potentialities for developing rural tourism which can be matched with sixth industry In order to support for sixth industry and to cope with wild animals attack, hunting tourism could be promoted as one of the potential activities to bring mutual benefits for local people at the same time This kind of activity is not only helping local people to deal with wild animal problem, but also is to supply wild boar meat for producing “smoked wild boar meat” to sell at the local shops, local restaurants, etc However, it is probably tough to operating hunting activities since such type of tourism can generate negative impacts to nature as well as needed the permission from local government Therefore, instead of organizing hunting activities, we proposed “hunting experience trainings” for local people This activity can be held by cooperation between current experienced hunters and young hunters as well as for tourists In addition, Nijo also faces with aging population like many rural areas in disadvantaged regions in Japan The lack of human resources influences seriously to Nijo’s community Therefore, to cope with current issues as well as to revitalize Nijo, volunteer tourism can be proposed in this area 224 We focused on people who have free time on the holidays to become potential volunteers The concept of “working holidays” has been developed in Europe and Australia, where mostly young people go for a few weeks or months to at a farm in exchange for food and accommodation and cultures at the same time Once volunteer tourism is developed, local people, especially elderly can be supported by young people from nearby regions or from urban areas The potential tourists may have opportunities to visit Nijo for helping local people to some activities such as cutting persimmon trees or repairing electric fences to prevent wild animals attack and to learn how to deal with wild animals, etc Besides, exchanging cultures among local people and potential international tourists would be nice experience The potential source of tourist can be international students from Hiroshima or Shimane prefecture that we would like to propose for volunteer tourism Furthermore, Nijo currently becomes one of the “cycling station” on the cycling route which is held by municipal government annually Likewise, during the summer season, there are some events, activities which are took place in Nijo such as “fire fly festival”, “rice harvesting festival”, etc Those above mentioned activities can contribute to rural tourism development in Nijo in the near future Besides, by reviewing a number of studies, it is attributed that volunteer tourism originated as a primarily British and European phenomenon, then it expanded in other regions and countries such as Australia, United States, and now growing to include Asian, African (Wearing & McGehee, 2013) In the case of Japan, due to the decline of population, especially in rural areas and isolated areas, rural tourism particular volunteer tourism could play an important role for revitalization of local community (e.g the research of Wijaya, 2013 in Yamaguchi Prefecture as an example) Therefore, from the research, we suppose that volunteer tourism is not only a way to support to disadvantaged areas, to coping with aging and depopulation, and in the case of Nijo it also helps local people to prevent wild animal attacks In reality, this type of tourism activity meets the local people’s needs as a bottom-up approach Furthermore, through organizing some events for foreigners and local people, it connects and shares some common interest as well as exchanging cultures among participants More importantly, the possibility of volunteer tourism could be a potential solution for Nijo community in the future Objectives of project In such situation, our interest is to consider how we can connect these factors and improve the situation So our team aim to foster local Sixth Industry activities to mitigate wild animal damages and revitalize the rural community Revitalization for economic aspect: creating new local economic opportunity for local people Revitalization for social aspect: building a new network and enhancing social welfare 225 - Revitalization for environmental aspect: improvement of physical environment, living condition, etc My role in the project As a cultural student and my research interest focuses on tourism and poverty alleviation, community-based tourism To contribute to the onsite team project and coping with the issues facing in Nijo, I took my responsibility related to tourism development proposal in this area Therefore, I proposed the idea of rural tourism in particular volunteer tourism development for Nijo By promoting this activity, it is not only help local people preventing wild animal attacks, but also contributing to th industry as a whole project’s goal Specifically, I cooperated with other team members to organize remarkable events during the project implementation time First event was to participate in the local festival as known firefly festival and conducted a questionnaire survey during that time Second event was to organize a volunteer trip for Hiroshima University international students come to Nijo and help local people taking persimmons and exchanging cultures among the participants Detailed works will be stated in the next section of this report My work related to project Before starting project Prior starting project, I involved in some preliminary fieldwork to identify the problems and challenges that the people in Nijo were facing with, then carried out the research proposal for our team project The followings were our preliminary trips to Nijo: - Nov 4th, 5th, 2016: Visit Nijo and talk with local people to know local problems - Dec 17th 2016: Discussion with the members of local community center and explanation of our plan - Feb 2nd to 5th 2017: Interview with members of local agricultural cooperatives, owner of wild boar meat shop, staff of municipal office and health center - Mar 24th to 26th 2017: Further discussion with local people about our project and future plan Project implementation The project was implemented officially from April 2017 to April 2018 During this time, I contributed to project by engaging in a number of works, fieldworks that related to my field In which, organizing the tourism events, designing the questionnaires, conducting surveys, analyzing the results, writing reports, and taking part in the presentation Mid-term implementation Before mid-term report, we took part in the firefly festival which was held in June 2017 in Nijo, Then, we also conducted the short survey about that event The main results of survey are shown in the figures: 3,4,5,6 226 Figure 3: Basic information about the survey Figure 5: Travel pattern of the respondents Figure 4: Survey respondents’ characteristics Figure 6: Perceptions of volunteer tourism in Nijo Final-term implementation One of the remarkable achievement that we did during the onsite team is that we organized successfully one-day trip for international students That could be considered as a trial volunteer tour for Nijo Hopefully, it would be continued implementing in the future The participants were from Hiroshima University International students and local people We offered free tour with main activities which were “taking persimmons” to prevent the wild bears attack and “making dry persimmons” to experience local traditional culture We received only 19 samples who participated in the tour due to the limitation of the budget The results of survey from volunteer tour are shown in the figures 7-12 Figure 7: Survey respondents’ characteristics 227 Figure 8: Reason for participating in the tour Figure 9: Some reasons to take part in other activities Figure 10: The interest in doing volunteer tour Figure 11: The attractiveness about the tour Figure 12: The satisfaction about the tour in general After the final presentation, I also a person in charge of making a final A0-poster for our team and contributed to our final group report Outcomes and lessons learned I believe that we have achieved some significant outcomes through doing onsite team project One of the outcome that related to my duty was the contribution to the success of tourism events in particular and the project’s goal as a whole Although it was challenging to cooperate with other members with different research backgrounds and perspectives, the difficulties in communicating with local people, I have learnt a good thing that group work is important, and cooperation, multi-faceted thinking is necessary for my research in the future Acknowledgement: I would like to thank to Taoyaka program’s professors, mentors, staff who supported us during a one-year onsite team project, especially my sincerely thanks to Nijo’s people for their kindly, friendly cooperation References Wearing, S., & McGehee, N G (2013) Volunteer tourism: A review Tourism Management, 38, 120-130 Wijaya, S.M.N (2013) Contemporary problems in Japan’s rural areas and opportunities for developing rural tourism: A case of Yamashiro district in Yamaguchi Prefecture Journal of East Asia Studies, 11, 59-72 228