COM 0942.146 2006-2008 - Laserfiche WebLink

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six years since Article 25 took effect are more remarkable. All across Japan in public and privately owned facilities, non-smoking areas have been set up where none existed before, and formerly designated smoking areas have been reduced or eliminated. And earlier this month, Governor Shigefumi Matsuzawa of Kanagawa Prefecture announced plans to enact Japan's first comprehensive workplace smoking restriction - covering all hotels, restaurants, and bars in Japan's second largest prefecture with nearly 9 million residents. Moreover, there is no substantive evidence that our state's comprehensive law has been a drag upon Japanese tourism. Please consider: ® Any consideration of Japanese tourism economics is inevitably complicated by the multiple factors affecting tourism. Smoking issues are highly unlikely to be anywhere nearly as significant as Japan's economic vitality, US Dollar exchange rates, air travel prices, flight and hotel availability, etc. ® There has been no evidence of restrictive smoking policies negatively affecting Japanese tourist choices to other popular destinations for Japanese nationals such as Los Angeles, New York, London, Sydney, or Hong Kong. ® There is no data evidencing our state's comprehensive clean-air law harming Japanese tourism since implementation in November 2006. It is well known that monthly Japanese visitor arrivals have been in a steady decline for the past several years. Japanese visitor arrivals have been in negative territory every month since October 2005, excepting only December 2005 and July-August 2007. This is the source of reports that have accurately described Japanese tourism as being "down". The more interesting point is that the attached chart reveals a remarkable trending up in Japanese visitor arrivals beginning around November 2006. This is because even while Japanese visitor arrivals mostly remained in negative territory from November 2006, the depth of the chart points has been getting shallower. The data show that Japanese visitor arrivals began a steady decline around January 2005 and have been negative in the prior year comparison nearly consistently since October 2005. However, please note how the curve bottoms out around November 2006. Since November 2006, even while Japanese visitor arrivals were negative in the prior year comparison, the amount that the Japanese visitor arrivals were negative has substantially improved. Visitor days show a nearly identical trend. In short, Japanese tourism indicators have been "down" from well before the implementation date of our Smoke-Free Workplace Law in November 2006. But, perhaps coincidentally or perhaps not, these indicators have been "less down" since our state's law took effect.