著者

小川 功

出版者

滋賀大学経済学会

雑誌

彦根論叢 (ISSN:03875989)

巻号頁・発行日

no.第396号, pp.24-37, 2013-06

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Japan has a tradition called koh, or group trips for religious purposes, which started before the early modern period. After the country’s school system was established in the early Meiji period around 1870, educational group trips started to be offered in the form of excursions and school trips. Moreover, a number of travel enthusiasts got together and formed tourist clubs simply to enjoy traveling together. Such clubs were common and active before World War II. This paper will take a close look at the original structures and styles of clubs established during the Meiji period and often called sightseeing clubs. Founders of such groups in large cities such as Kyoto, Tokyo, Osaka and Kobe, purposes and themes of their trips, and relationships between the clubs’ local characteristics and nature of trips planned were examined. Relationships between club founders’ hospitality and their activities were studied, with the main focus on the oldest of the groups -- Kyoto Sightseeing Club, whose activities were traceable to a certain degree. There are significant differences between the tourism design of the Kyoto club and that of its Kobe counterpart that can be attributed to regional characteristics : Kyoto is full of ancient temples and shrines, while Kobe is surrounded by mountains. Yet, the nature of founders as tourism designers had a larger influence on each club’s direction. A Tokyo club organized by students preferred adventurous trips. One in Osaka was founded by cartographers and thus often went on trips associated with a map. They often built monuments in commemoration of surveies they conducted. Activities of many of these organizations were limited, due to the personal circumstances of their founders, and they were designed for personal pleasure rather than business purposes. Thus, most of the clubs did not develop into established businesses or professional travel agencies.