Spinning and giving form to local feelings Kyonan Town Revitalization Project in Chiba Prefecture

Have you ever visited Kyonan Town, Chiba Prefecture?
Kyonan Town, where the charm of the nature and history of Tokyo Bay and the Miura Peninsula lies dormant, faces challenges such as the difficulty of tourism measures due to its proximity to the city center and the damage caused by natural disasters in recent years.
This time, from 2021 to 2022, NOMURA Co., Ltd., Ltd. will introduce a tourism area revitalization project that we have worked on together with everyone who runs a business in the Kyonan area with a strong desire for regional revitalization and disaster recovery.

Encounter with Kyonan Town

Kyonan Town and Genna Coast area

Kyonan Town in Chiba Prefecture is a town of Uchibo located between Kisarazu City and Tateyama City. Adjacent to the south of Mt. Nokogiri, which has been popular on social media in recent years, it has abundant tourism resources such as historic sites, beaches, fishing ports and restaurants where you can taste fresh seafood, hot springs, local beer, and popular roadside stations.

Nevertheless, since this area is within the range of day trips from Tokyo on the Aqua Line and Tateyama Expressway, the amount of time tourists stay in the area is short, and the ripple effect on the local economy has tended to be small. As a result, guest houses and souvenir shops have gone out of business, public transportation has declined, and there is a shortage of sightseeing tour routes that connect the abundant tourism resources.
In particular, it is difficult to secure means of transportation other than automobiles, and the secondary and tertiary transportation infrastructure between expressway bus stations is shrinking. is.

Sightseeing spots that represent Kyonan Town "Kyonan Town / Yoritomo Sakura" "Peeping into Mt. Nokogiri Jigoku"

Local enthusiasm that connects, words that are spun

After sorting out the current situation in Kyonan Town, the axis of the project was set to "refine and connect point-to-point tourism resources beyond the boundaries of local governments" and"develop new content for long stays".

Through Mr. Toyoshima, Mr. Hiruta, president of Kinokuniya Co., Ltd. (Kyonan Town), which handles a number of accommodation facilities in Kyonan Town, Nitto Kotsu Co., Ltd., which supports the area's major public transportation, and private lodgings at the foot of Mt. (Futtsu City), Kyonan Museum of Art (Futtsu City), and Kyonan Co., Ltd. (Kyonan Town), a craft beer manufacturer.
In addition, Mr. Suzuki from tsuzuki, who has been involved in many projects for regional revitalization, participated and cooperated in various aspects such as planning and operation.
In this way, we have established a system to support and prepare the backstage, with local businesses as the main players.

NOMURA Co., Ltd. was in charge of overall supervision, application, content planning for regional revitalization, partial construction, and creation of the project completion report.

Various preparations are required to apply for a subsidy.
For example, we will draw up a story for revitalizing the entire area by assembling facilities and demonstration experiments for each business, clarifying issues and KPIs for revitalization, income and expenditure plans, and effect verification plans.

First of all, we spin the various thoughts, experiences, challenges and dreams of everyone in Kyonan Town into words, and the people of Kyonan add more words, and we plan and coordinate.
After repeating the work of spinning thoughts and words between the local side and us many times, the outline of the project was completed.

Sightseeing area revitalization project "Healing Nokogiriyama Microtourism" started!

In November 2021, the subsidy payment will be approved without incident, and the efforts of the five business operators will start operating all at once.
First of all, the planned site is not the city boundary, but the Kyonan area (Futtsu City, Kyonan Town, Minamiboso City) that divides the area from a tourist perspective centered on Mt. Nokogiri.
The purpose of this is to connect the ferry and highway bus boarding and alighting stations and tourist attractions with a single flow line that crosses the municipality, and to improve the mobility of visitors.
In order for visitors to relax in the area and fully enjoy Kyonan's nature and sightseeing spots, we named it a "healing micro-tourism base" and mainly planned the following three points.

Demonstrate the story you drew and connect the project to the second chapter

We would like to introduce two demonstration experiments in which we were involved in the planning, construction, and operation.

 

Free tour bus "Jobus!!"

"Jobus!!" Inside the car and around the bus stop

"Jobus!!" (Operating period: January 4 to February 8, 2022) is a demonstration operation of a sightseeing tour bus (secondary transportation) that connects tourist bases across two municipalities and one town. It's an event.
This project was aimed at young people who are moving away from owning their own cars and leisurely traveling alone to visit sightseeing spots.
Nine round trips a day were made free of charge at eight stops set within the area, and a digital stamp rally and SNS photo contest were held during the service period to further encourage excursions within the area from each stop. A Nitto Kotsu bus guide will accompany the tour, providing guidance on local history and famous places to further arouse interest in each tourist base, and we hope to increase repeat visitors to the area.

The total number of passengers getting on and off during the period was 2,091. According to the post-boarding questionnaire (n=218), 82.1% of the passengers expressed a high level of satisfaction with this service. In addition, more than 80% of the reservations are residents of the Tokyo metropolitan area and are in their 20s to 50s. In addition, more than 75% of users visit by other than private cars, and about 73% of them visit 2 to 4 points, mainly Mt. Nokogiri and Nihon-ji Temple. I was able to achieve it.
As new perspectives and realizations, the fact that "free of charge and the service of the bus crew" was very popular, that the user's activity time zone was mainly from 9:00 to 17:00, and that the use It was found that those who traveled around the area gathered information from staff and advertisements at each tourist base in the area.

 

Beach sauna event "Ocean and Sauna"

"Totoi Deck" where you can relax while looking at the sea after sauna, cold bath and sauna tent using underground water from Mt.

"Sea and Sauna" (implementation date: February 5-6, 2022) We aimed to revitalize the beach area of Motona Kaigan in Kyonan Town and make effective use of the winter season with a highly purposeful attraction content called "sauna". This is a proof event.
There is a tent sauna on the beach, a cold bath using underground water from Mt. Together at the local revitalization event in Kamogawa City Yoshiro Iida Benjamin The artwork of is coloring various places in the venue. We were in charge of planning, space design, construction, operation, public relations, logo creation and naming. In addition, building a management method based on measures against coronavirus infectious diseases was a great experience for the next event.

“Umi to Sauna” focused on PR and promotion measures in order to approach women in their 20s and 30s and those who are highly interested in saunas.
PR activities centered on media publication and interviews, radio appearances by famous female saunas, and Instagram campaigns using “#Sea and Sauna”.
As a result, key stations and newspapers interviewed young people enjoying the sauna, and the images spread on SNS, creating a chain of attracting customers and interview inquiries.

A total of 192 people attended the two-day event (advance reservations required, sauna capacity limited). According to a visitor survey (n = 85), about 48% of those who came to the Kyonan area for the first time feel the possibility of planning an event to revitalize the tourist base.
In addition, “introduction by acquaintances” and “SNS” were the top two answers as a way to learn about the event, and we were able to confirm that it is an effective method for attracting customers to areas such as saunas where there are strong enthusiasts. Overall satisfaction was high, such as "The concept was well thought out," "I wanted to participate many times," and "The location was good."

"Jobus!!" and "Umi to Sauna" posters

At each of these two events, we conducted multiple surveys such as user questionnaires, SNS analysis, and website access analysis, and summarized the analysis in a report.

Business operators said, "There were many people who came to the Nokogiriyama area, which is rich in nature, for the first time because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was great that they were able to enjoy the scenery." We would like to increase the number of visitors and repeat visitors in the entire area by increasing the number of visitors and repeat visitors in the entire area by collaborating more with operators and increasing the enjoyment of sightseeing tours for tourists.” I want to revitalize the area.”

These quantitative and qualitative feedbacks are a great treasure for those involved in efforts to revitalize local communities that are difficult to express in numbers.
We got hints for the next challenge, such as services that create a sense of unity as an area, service stories that can be enjoyed repeatedly, and sightseeing in the evening.
Learning through this demonstration, sorting out issues, and verifying data will lead to further regional revitalization in the Kyonan area.

 

Excerpt from the "Jobus!!" Report

 

Excerpt from the "Sea and Sauna" report

Local people play the leading role

It happened when I got on the "Jobus!!". The bus takes about 40 minutes each way, but the bus guides kindly explained not only the sights, but also the local historical background and even small historic sites that might be overlooked. The love and pride of the people have been conveyed through the power of words.

The leading role on the stage is the local people. As professionals, we plan the performance, create the stage equipment, see off until the customers who have experienced it return home comfortably, and verify it for the next time.
I believe that the significance of our involvement in this project is summed up in the words of one of the project members: remains in

Kyonan Town's project is moving towards the next phase. All project members are working hard to plan. Please stay tuned for further news.