FY2001
In line with the flourishing of mass tourism which has taken place since the 1960s, we have witnessed a conspicuous burdensome impact in various places in the world in terms of the natural environment suffering destruction, cultural heritages being diminished, traditional cultures being mistakenly used and ill used, stratification developing in local societies, and crime and prostitution increasing. For these reasons, since the 1980s the creation of new forms of mass tourism under slogans such as “a different kind of tourism,” “appropriate tourism,” “responsible tourism” or “sustainable tourism” has become a global issue. We can expect to see further growth in the volume of international tourism in the twenty-first century. In particular a “big bang” in tourism for several Asian countries is projected for the 2010s. Therefore, this research aims at comprehensive research on self-controlled tourism for Japan and various places throughout the world conducted in such a manner that local people direct and control their unique local resources (natural environment, cultural heritage), so as to contribute to the creation of sustainable tourism as a global theme. To conduct integrated research on the possibilities for self-controlled tourism, we need to adopt approaches from diverse research fields, and having already involved numerous researchers in the planning, we expect to be able to accomplish major results.