Nohoho

Nohoho’s Vision

沖縄と八重山諸島――。その美しさと“心（きぅむ）”を伝える。
Conveying the beauty and true spirit of the Yaeyama Islands and Okinawa.

Our mission

The Yaeyama Islands in Okinawa Prefecture have long been known as a popular domestic tourist destination in Japan. In the 2010s, as the number of inbound tourists to Japan increased, the number of overseas visitors in Okinawa and the Yaeyama region also increased. In 2018, TripAdvisor announced Ishigaki as the world’s No. 1 Top trending destination on the rise. In the same year, the International Dark-Sky Association tentatively certified the Iriomote Ishigaki National Park as Japan’s first Dark Sky Park. Furthermore, in 2021, Iriomote Island was registered as a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site along with Amami Oshima and Tokunoshima in Kagoshima Prefecture and the northern part of the main island of Okinawa in Okinawa Prefecture, and the region is gaining more and more attention from both inside and outside of Japan. Currently, tourism from overseas has basically halted due to COVID-19, but at the same time, the Yaeyama Islands are becoming more and more popular as a domestic travel destination for foreign residents in Japan.

Based in Ishigaki, Okinawa, Nohoho’s activities aim to support grasping business opportunities stemming from inbound tourism and to raise the standard for tourism in Okinawa and the Yaeyama Islands to international levels. Nohoho provides services towards the development of sustainable business, considering and respecting the perspective of the local culture, nature, and history, as well as the importance of local people’s connections that we have been able to build, exactly thanks to living and working in this area of Japan. Leveraging a background of many years of experience working at foreign-affiliated companies in Japan, Nohoho aims to bridge between local and global and to maximize value creation for all stakeholders.

What do we offer

Our Services

Inbound consulting

Nohoho supports the creation of tools and appropriate setups, and provides staff education, such as mindset change, for serving foreign travellers. We provide training focusing on inbound tourism, including language proficiency, the creation of information materials for foreign guests, and other solutions for related issues in various industries. We also provide market research and consulting from the perspective of overseas trends.

Content creation

Nohoho proposes contents creation that reflect the local background and the quality of services and products understanding the relevant issues and needs. We support content creation through advertising articles towards foreign readers, foreign language product packaging, as well as online media, and SNS.

Business support

Nohoho aims to act as a bridge from the local perspective to overseas customers. We support e-mail communication, international meetings, preparation of materials, meeting facilitation etc. We support strategic approaches towards overseas markets from a professional standpoint.

Others

Please feel free to contact us for other business support such as interpreting/translation, event planning, attending, etc.

About

Our Name

Nohoho draws its name from a legendary character called Ohoho. Ohoho annually visits Iriomote Island during an annual harvest festival. He resembles a 17^th-century Western sailor reflecting the rich history of the Yaeyama Islands and their position situated along the former routes of European trading ships. While he hands out money to locals, he doesn’t speak the language and he ends up leaving the island unhappy as an unhappy man.

Nohoho combines his name with ‘No’, aiming to achieve the opposite: to bridge between the local Okinawan communities and their visitors, enhancing opportunities for local businesses and boosting the Okinawan experience for its guests.

Introduction

Born and raised in the Netherlands, Eric van Rijn has spent more than 20 years living in Japan. With degrees from the Netherlands’ Erasmus University Rotterdam in Economics (M.Sc.) and Japan’s Waseda University in International Relations (M.A.), he has worked for international companies in the Netherlands, Germany and Japan with functions in Finance, Management Support and Communications.

Having travelled in Europe, North America and Asia including Japan, he has frequently visited the Okinawan islands since his first trip in 2006. He moved to Ishigaki in Okinawa prefecture in 2016 and established Nohoho one year later. In 2020, he launched ViLLA Nohoho, a small scale per-introduction-only accommodation in the northern part of Ishigaki Island.

Click here for the ViLLA Nohoho site.