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are ONLINE at: www.tourism-international.de
3.
'Big Business' interests
in tourism development
Domestic tourism development in Japan is closely
related to the alliance between major companies and political parties.
In the “Resort Law” of 1987, no less than
20% of all land was supposed to be developed into ski and holiday resorts by ‘3rd sector
system’ companies (public-private partnerships).
This accelerated massive hardware construction by
big real estate and building companies with little
regard for maintenance, quality or impacts.
The icon of this development is Yoshiaki Tsutsumi,
according to FORBES the richest person in the world between 1987 and 1990 and a
close friend and patron of Prime Minister ‘Lionheart’ Koizumi.
With the battle
cry “I want to own all land in Japan that is suitable for tourism development”
Tsutsumis Kokudo Corp. developed 81 hotels, 36 Ski resorts, 52 golf courses
etc., infrastructure provided free of charge by national and prefectural
governments.
In 1998 he succeeded in bringing the Olympic Winter Games to
Nagano, using almost exclusively Kokudo installations there.
Arrested in March 2005, he pleaded
guilty to insider
trading and falsifying reports on the first day of his trial on June 16th, 2005.
Contact: wolfgang.arlt@fh-stralsund.de
Tel. +49 (3831) 456 961
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