The World Economic Forum has released the 2009 report on Travel & Tourism competitiveness. Japan ranks 25th out of 133 countries surveyed - down two places from last year - while Switzerland, Austria and Germany retain the top three spots. Japan again scored well for health & hygiene, human & cultural resources and transport infrastructure but remained weak in the category called "Affinity for Tourism" where the country ranked 131st - a fall of three places. This measures tourism income as a percentage of GDP and more intangible factors such as "attitude of the population towards foreigners". The "Yokoso" Japan campaign doesn't fare particularly well either. In the category which measures effectiveness of branding and marketing, Japan ranks 89th. It seems likely that this report will be used as a benchmark to assess the efforts of the newly created Tourism agency and so the local media are picking up the details. This might explain why the government chose to announce yesterday how they intended to speed entry procedures for visitors and improve the ability of domestic hotels to deal with foreign tourists.
