著者

矢部 直人

出版者

一般社団法人 人文地理学会

雑誌

人文地理 (ISSN:00187216)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.65, no.3, pp.264-278, 2013 (Released:2018-01-26)

参考文献数

28

被引用文献数

1

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In 2008, domestic travel spending in Japan reached 23.6 trillion yen, with overnight travel by the Japanese amounting to 15.6 trillion yen (66.2%). In contrast, domestic overnight travel by international visitors to Japan accounted for only 1.3 trillion yen (5.7%). If overnight travel by the Japanese were to be increased, it would not only contribute to travel spending but also stimulate the regional economies. The Japan Tourism Agency proposed a plan to stagger national holidays by region to reduce traffic jams and make travel easy for people. The plan suggests the division of Japan into five zones, with each zone observing a five-day break during different weeks in May. This paper proposes zoning plans for the regional holiday schedule and investigates the zoning effects in view of travel demand equalization.Network analysis was applied to the OD (Origin-Destination) data of the Japanese overnight travelers between prefectures published by the Japan Tourism Agency. PageRank centrality was computed to check the stability of travel flow between prefectures from January 2007 to March 2010. Functional regions were then extracted from the OD data by the community finding method to set zoning plans. A greedy search algorithm was employed for the community finding analysis. The OD data for May 2009, which included the Japanese national holiday period called “Golden Week,” was used for community finding.The results of PageRank centrality analysis showed that the overnight travel flow was very stable for the period. Chiba Prefecture showed the highest PageRank centrality mainly because of Tokyo Disney Resort, which attracted travelers from all over Japan. Narita International Airport also contributed to the high centrality of Chiba Prefecture.The application of the community finding method to the OD data led to two zoning plans. While one of them divided Japan into two zones - eastern and western Japan, the other divided it into three -eastern Japan, western Japan, and Kyushu. Hence, the results of the community finding method offered fewer zones than were proposed through the plan developed by the Japan Tourism Agency.We evaluated these zoning plans in terms of travel demand equalization. Travel demand was considered to be equalized when the percentage of overnight travelers from each zone was equal. The three zoning plans that divided Japan into two, three, and five zones were compared in view of travel demand. It was concluded that the zoning plan which divided Japan into two zones was the most effective in terms of travel demand equalization.