Sustainable tourism in small islands

I thought Sunday would be my well-deserved rest day, but early this morning, I spotted a big cruise ship docked at Naze Port from my balcony. It was too good an opportunity for ethnographic fieldwork to pass up—so out I went into the rain!

I’d heard stories about the town being flooded with hundreds of visitors at once, despite its limited capacity to accommodate them. This was the perfect moment to observe the impact of tourism on a small island.

I “casually” befriended a group of Australian cruise passengers during their rather aimless walk from the ship to the town center. Aimless, because they had no idea where they were going or what there was to see.

Here’s what I learned: The Norwegian Spirit carried 2,000 passengers who had boarded in Sydney and was en route to Korea as its final stop. When I asked if they’d received any information about the island onboard, the answer was a resounding no. The cruise offered bus tours for around AU$300 per person, which they found too expensive, so they decided to explore on their own. They hadn’t researched local guides or transport, naively assuming they could just grab a taxi at the port. But there are no taxis—or even local guides at the port—just a small makeshift marquee set up with souvenirs whenever a ship arrives.

So there they were, wandering into town with no clue about the island’s culture, nature, or attractions. I offered to take them to the shopping arcade, which they gladly accepted, and did my best to share a little about Amami Oshima along the way. It irked that they hadn’t bothered to do some basic search on Amami. They weren’t that impressed at the mentionn of habu, the poisonous snake and king of Amami’s forests, “we have snakes in Australia too”, they said. Nevertheless I took them to my friend’s snake shop in hope something more nuanced of the island’s culture will make an impression on them.

The arcade was already swarming with hundreds of other aimless cruisers. Most weren’t interested in eating (thanks to the endless buffets onboard) or serious shopping (evident from the empty high-end tsumugi kimono shops). They just wanted free entertainment and cheap souvenirs—neither of which Naze has much to offer on a Sunday morning (or any other day, really).

I noticed some shops had put up some English signs explaining what tsumugi is—because unless you know, you wouldn’t pay much attention.

In one secondhand store, tourists were even invited inside to learn origami. At another, some food was on offer. And I noticed lots of old kimonos on sale, something I had not seen until recently.

At one point, I spotted three schoolboys in uniform with a note on their jackets that read, “Do you need help?”in English. Curious, I approached them, but their limited English made conversation difficult. They handed me a simple map print out of the town’s key attractions—though I doubted it would be of much use to cruise passengers. Still, I appreciated their effort, especially in the absence of any official tourism presence.

The town clearly isn’t equipped for such an influx or kind of visitors, and these cruise passengers aren’t the savviest tourists (though I might be biased). One Australian even complained about clothing sizes: “Can’t you tell them to make bigger sizes for tourists?” But I had already noticed a shop had put out a rack with only XL clothes just for tourists.

What a missed opportunity for everyone involved! But it made me think, is that the kind of tourism Amami Oshima, Japan’s newest UNESCO World Natural Heritage site wants or even needs?