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Friday, 24th April 2015
In Japan Travel News,
Japanese government plans 30,000 wireless locations by 2020
In a bid to boost tourism to the region even further, the Japanese government has announced that it is planning to set up free wireless services at around 30,000 locations across the country by 2020.
The Yomiuri Shimbun reports that many of these locations will be popular tourist destinations, and the ultimate goal of the scheme will be to offer key information to visitors in several foreign languages. These information centres will make it easier for travellers to get around, and may even bring in much-needed revenue to local economies, all in the run-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
It has already been estimated that installing the networks will cost 31.3 billion yen, half of which will be provided by the government. It is certainly a worthy investment, considering that these free wireless services will also result in an additional 1.46 million foreign visitors annually according to government estimates, which would bring in an extra 210.2 billion yen every year in spending.
While these free networks are currently on offer in a quarter of the country's main tourist hotspots, such as national parks and museums in the likes of Tokyo and Kyoto, it is hoped that they will be available in the majority of them over the next five years. However, it won't just be notable attractions that gain the technology. Public wireless local area networks are set to be installed at evacuation facilities throughout Japan too.
In total, the Japanese government has a target of reaching 20 million annual visitors by 2020; a goal they are set to hit possibly in 2015 or 2016, if recent arrival figures are anything to go by. And in this digital age, the importance of wi-fi accessibility has never been more pressing.