About two years ago I spied a marketing technology trade show over in the Tokyo International Forum, and decided to check out the latest methods for pushing your stuff.

My take is that the levels of growth experienced over the last five years are indeed coming to an end. The market is maturing and our repeat visitors will continue coming and spending more strategically.

Many hotels are not receptive to doing business with foreigners - which is amazing when you consider we're already 5 years into the biggest travel boom Japan has seen in the last 30 years.

Evolable Asia is the leader in the sector of domestic and Japanese outbound air ticketing - a market that is worth about JPY1.5trn annually, selling about 2.6% of all domestic flights.

The government announced that it would be allocating JPY11.2bn in funds, five times the 2012 number, to help Hokkaido tourism recover from the September earthquake.

A company to catch our attention this last week was Huber, a matchmaker of mostly Japanese students acting as low-cost uncertified guides to foreigners who feel intimidated by the language barrier here.

Not challenging the big foreign firms who control the inbound market causes lost revenue not getting reinvested locally, and this hurts the development of new products and services.

Instead of the local players making good in Japan, it has taken a Taiwanese firm to show the locals how to revitalize the market. And the way they are doing it is really interesting.

While my fellow Japanese passengers knew to be patient and endure, the foreign tourists could only wait about 30 minutes before they started fidgeting and needing more information.

Unfortunately for Kochi, although they got the boats and the visitors, in reality it hasn't resulted in the economic boom that they expected. The tourists are visiting the shops. But once in those shops, they are looking but not buying.