Some quango is aiming to triple the number of foreign tourists to 18 million by 2016. The previous target of 10 million by 2010 was missed by miles, and followed by a large decline last year for obvious reasons. It is vaguely reminiscent of the way that the UK realised its feeble short-term GHG emissions target were going to be missed by a mile, so it made up a ridiculous long-term one instead. The recipe to achieve this is to "disseminate accurate information on natural and other disasters" and invest in tourist attractions outside of the main honeypot areas.
Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't subscribe to the "build it and they will come" mentality quite as slavishly as seems to be the case here. I'm sure the construction kickbacks will make it all worthwhile though.
Maybe they are planning to engineer a crash in the value of the yen, but otherwise, Japan is extremely expensive at the moment. Of course it's not a problem for us being paid in yen (quite the reverse) but a bit shocking when you compare prices to what they would be in $ or £ right now. A ¥1000 glass of beer (admittedly, that's for good beer) is not unusual, that's $13 or £8 these days. And our stay in the top-notch Westin on Union Square in San Francisco was massively cheaper than the mediocre business hotel that visitors to Tsukuba have to suffer (as if simply coming to Tsukuba itself wasn't bad enough).
Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't subscribe to the "build it and they will come" mentality quite as slavishly as seems to be the case here. I'm sure the construction kickbacks will make it all worthwhile though.
Maybe they are planning to engineer a crash in the value of the yen, but otherwise, Japan is extremely expensive at the moment. Of course it's not a problem for us being paid in yen (quite the reverse) but a bit shocking when you compare prices to what they would be in $ or £ right now. A ¥1000 glass of beer (admittedly, that's for good beer) is not unusual, that's $13 or £8 these days. And our stay in the top-notch Westin on Union Square in San Francisco was massively cheaper than the mediocre business hotel that visitors to Tsukuba have to suffer (as if simply coming to Tsukuba itself wasn't bad enough).
5 comments:
So you have also been looking up
the figures to see 2010 UK CO2 emmisions were 495.8 mt. A drop from 561 for 2006 when a target of 474mt for 2010 was announced.
So achieved 75% of the fall that was targeted. (Obviously you wanted to see if there was a play money profit available at http://www.ideosphere.com/fx-bin/Claim?claim=UKco2 or maybe not ;o) )
Still 75% doesn't sound bad. Now if all countries managed that in future .....
I didn't see where the UK strategic plan included a massive economic collapse as a way to get somewhere close to their target :-)
On the other hand:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/02/04/open-thread-21/#comment-150441
Massive economic collapse and wealth transfer is what Tories do best. Once the majority of the population are immiserated they won't be able to afford cars or gas for heating their houses.
how much better the Labour/Greek model though?
maybe it all ends at "immiserated" and anything other than that is a bubble.
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