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.