As we continue the countdown to implementation of the new Minpaku Law (the Airbnb law as we like to call it), investors, sociologists, and little old ladies alike are all expecting the sector to become a major contributor to the economy.

Destination marketing organizations can help remote regions to improve their infrastructure and attractiveness, and thus help those areas bring home some tourist dollars.

With this latest intercontinental ballistic missile test, Kim Jong-Un is going from being an irrelevant annoyance to the U.S. who was only capable of hitting parts of Japan, to now being a major strategic threat.

Let's just remind ourselves that the top activity foreign tourists want to do before coming to Japan is to try some particular type of food.

What we do know is that out of roughly 1,183 travel agents who are members of the Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA), only 105 (8.87%) are registered for Inbound business.

Despite the massive contracts and various preferences JTB receives every day, the company barely improved its sales and profit numbers overall in FY2015 and FY2016.

How to carve out a stake converting Kyoto "slum area" houses into Airbnb stays. This is a great example of how you can help lift the fortunes of an entire neighborhood.

Tink Labs, had just raised US$125m to implement an ambitious plan to put a free smart phone into every room of every participating hotel chain in all major tourist destinations in Europe, North America, and Asia.

APIs are indeed hard work to implement. The supplier offering an API needs to think deeply about their business and at which points in their existing systems they are willing to inject outside requests for action.

In risk averse Japan, the thrill scale is a bit more docile than some other locations, but the most iconic and visually spectacular events are superb. The olden-day Japanese were particularly good at vivid colors, lighting, and shapes.