Cool Japan, one of Japan’s organizations that promotes tourism to Japan through pop culture, is in danger of being eliminated. If the organization is not able to turn a profit by 2025, the Ministry of Finance has said that it will be closed down. Cool Japan has to come up with new ways to promote itself, which may change how pop culture is promoted abroad.
After more than two years of closure, Japan finallyreopened its bordersto free tourism again in October. That means Japan is back to promoting tourism abroad again, trying to recoup the money that they have lost for the past couple of years. Cool Japan is a huge part of Japan’s tourism campaign, especially in Western countries, considering many tourists come here to spend money on Japanese pop culture.
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Cool Japan is actually employed by theJapanese governmentto run projects in other countries to both educate them about Japanese pop culture, and to hopefully entice them to visit and spend money. Thus, the Ministry of Finance is setting an improvement plan for the organization for the second time in hopes of making it more profitable in the next two years. Since 2020, Cool Japan is actually in debt, which currently stands at more than 188.8 million US dollars.
Cool Japan’s purpose is to emphasize the parts of Japanese culture that foreigners find “cool,” and while that is mostly pop culture like anime and manga, it also includes fashion, robots and other high-technology, Japanese food,traditional culture, and more. Arguably, though, the biggest successes are usually campaigns centering on manga, anime, and games, which draw some of the biggest interest in Japan abroad.
Cool Japan has even been described as a form of political soft power for Japan, because it is used in so many countries to promote the country in a certain light - a positive one, to be precise. Japan has a lot ofcultural powerabroad, with people from all over the world interested in both its traditional and modern culture and intrigued by its world. Anime and manga have only continued to grow more popular abroad over the last decade, with no end in sight.
While it is hard to predict the exact future of Cool Japan, we are hoping that this will not be the end for the organization. Cool Japan works hard to bring Japanese pop culture to the rest of the world but has sadly suffered from theCOVID pandemicjust like many things related to tourism. With the borders open again and many people more excited than ever to come to Japan, though, hopefully, it can reverse its debt.
Two years may seem like a long time to us, but it’s nothing in the world of business. And with a debt that big, Cool Japan has a lot of work cut out for it if it will not only eliminate the debt but reverse it into a profit. We will be looking forward to Cool Japan’s upcoming campaigns as part of its new improvements!
