Radiation and Hokkaido: Interview for Powderlife Magazine

The big news of 2011 in Japan has obviously been the tragic earthquake on 11 March, which triggered the devastating tsunami and Fukushima Nuclear Crisis. Hokkaido was relatively unaffected (although some coastal areas and downtown Hakodate were badly hit). There was a significant local "aftershock", however, when the number of domestic and international visitors to Hokkaido fell through the floor immediately after the earthquake. I have been conducting research on tourism over the past couple of years, and I was hearing stories from a number of quarters about how dire things were for the tourism sector. Domestic tourism has bounced back, but international tourism remains sluggish. The Japanese government has even taken the drastic step of offering free flights to 10,000 people to entice them to Japan!

So when Powderlife Magazine in Niseko approached me for an interview to reassure international visitors, I was only too happy to oblige. You can read the whole interview here. But the message is a simple one. The experts at Hokkaido University and in local government are saying that Hokkaido is safe, and basically unaffected by the nuclear tragedy that has occurred down south.

Hokkaido has an image of being an idyllic tourist destination: cool with spectacular scenery in summer, and offering some of the finest winter sports on the planet in winter. But, economically, Hokkaido is also one of the poorer and depressed areas of Japan. So, any hit that one of its key sectors takes is felt very hard across the island. While not wanting to minimize in any way the enormity of the events further south, it is important to keep a sense of perspective on safety issues in Hokkaido. Watching out for Hokkaido's famous speeding drivers is a far greater safety issue than the nuclear crisis for all visitors here!