May 15, 2000

Senjogahara Marsh, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan

“With the possible exception of the nuclear war business, no business targets everyone. And the businesses that do target everyone wind up hitting none.”

Educated. Broad-range of interests. Seekers of authenticity. Strong conservation ethic. Curiosity about and acceptance of different lifestyles. Conscious of the importance of history. Concerned about the future.

Who are these people? They’re the metatourists. Possessing a specialized body of knowledge or a keen interest in a given field, the metatourist travels worldwide to engage his mind. Interests may include birds, a particular period of history, art, music, dragonflies, butterflies or literature. The foundation of metatourism is built on authenticity and the opportunity to experience. Theme parks, gimmicks, fake sites and forms of artificial stimulation are avoided like the plague-more so, in fact, since the metatourist’s itinerary often brings him directly into areas stricken by some of the most contagious and lethal pathogens known to man. Traditional forms of tourism that force all travelers to wear the same cramped shoe are eschewed by the metatourist, who looks for flexibility, variety, and the chance to engage. The metatourist, as the Greek prefix "meta" implies, seeks to transcend.

Different from specialty tourists-people who travel to a certain place to attain a single objective-metatourists display a broad range of curiosity about the areas they visit. Although prinicipally a birdwatcher, for example, the metatourist would also appreciate and want to experience the broader cultural and historical setting of his destination. Scope, variety and the feel of the genuine are all tags that such travelers look for when they leave home.

Fermata believes that the future of sustainable nature tourism is closely linked with the ability of sites to offer more than simply a world-class birdwatching marsh. In order to create a truly integrated travel experience, and one that appeals to people seeking authenticity, communities will have to package their natural resources with cultural and historical ones as well. That packaging, however, must directly target specific travel goals.

Senjogahara Marsh sits about 4,000 feet above sea level, fifteen miles up the road from Nikko. This entire area perfectly captures the idea of a metatourism zone. In the town you can explore the roots of Tokugawa Japan’s feudal system, visit museums or practice with your own two hands the ancient art of Japanese woodcarving. A few minutes away by car or bus you can search out some of the most representative samples of Japan’s montane avifauna, safely removed from the clash and clamor of the phony Mt. Rushmore constructed in neighboring Western Village.

I arrived at Senjogahara at 5:30 in the morning. Spring down on the coastal plain had just finished, and the pale green foliage had already assumed its darker hue of verdant, early summer. The cherries of early spring were only a memory, and a pale one at that. But at Senjogahara Marsh, although winter had spent its force, it hadn’t yet given way to spring. The bare trees matched perfectly the chilling pre-dawn chill that chapped my hands red within moments.

The Nikko area tends to measure tourism only in direct dollars spent. No one has ever tried to document the indirect spending impact of nature tourists. A casual glance up the winding road to the marsh, however, screamed volumes. Several sport utility vehicles filled each and every pullout, and fishermen dotted the edges of Lake Chuzenji and Lake Yunoko. The wild was calling, and plenty of people were answering-myself included.

I parked at Akanuma and started down the boardwalk that runs through the marsh. On either side the tall, leafless trees rang with the songs of birds just beginning their morning forage. The distant drilling of a woodpecker pierced the medley of melody. I strained to pick him out among the darkened tree trunks, but couldn’t.

A few hundred yards from the starting point, the boardwalk begins to follow a small river. A pair of dicky-birds flitted along the bank, picking their breakfast from the grass and earth. My finger spun the focus wheel and they resolved into clear view: ashy-green heads that, towards the bill became plainly black; dusky brown lower back, black streak higher up; distinctly yellowish-green breast. "Hmmm," I thought. "Probably not a Japanese Crested Ibis."

These two Black-faced Buntings hopped and pecked, evenly working their side of the river for whatever forage it offered. The perfectly smooth water next to which they fed threw back their images in a tandem still shot, soon broken by a tiny eddy in the stream. Just above my head I heard a staccato chirp making the distinctive call, "Chi-chi-chi-juu-kara, Chi-chi-chi-juu-kara." Again I focused my binoculars on the source of the call and saw what was probably one of the most fantastically shaped creatures since the age of the dinosaurs. It was misshapen on all sides, and where the bill should have projected there was nothing but a twisted spike; the wings looked for all the world like great lumpy knobs, and though the creature was stationary its legs were completely invisible. Breathless at my discovery I rotated the focus wheel to resolve the image. "Ah yes," I thought, feeling quite the fool, "another one of those dead branch-ends masquerading as a bird."

Farther along the branch sat the Great Tit, repeatedly expostulating his "Chi-chi-chi-juu-kara." "What," I wondered, "is this bird’s name in Japanese?" I flipped through my Japanese field guide and located it. Logically enough, it’s called the "Shi-juu-kara." How much easier it would be to remember avian taxonomy if birds were normally named after their call. "Look, there goes a Crawk. And over there, a Cheep-cheep! My God! It’s a Peep-peep-peep Ki-kaw-kaw!"

The Great Tit, by whatever name, is just as sweet-or rather, just as beautiful. The sides of his head sport two large white patches, and their contrast with the rest of his blackened pate is as striking as the monochrome of a Jolly Roger. His neck then runs into a shimmering yellowish-green that tosses off enough shiny reflection to almost appear electrified. But this tiny bird, who by all rights should have been endowed with one striking feature at the most, saves his boldest fashion statement for last: a broad black brushstroke down his breast, set off to perfection against the surrounding white feathers of his underside. He chatted at me for a while longer and then flitted off.

Senjogahara covers over 400 acres of incredibly varied terrain: marsh, forest, rivers, creeks, ponds, and is a few short moments on foot from two brilliant waterfalls. The choice of hiking courses is equally varied, and on any given morning you will see magpies, woodpeckers, nuthatches, wagtails and, if you look carefully, a Brown Dipper.

Given the beauty of the place, its relative accessibility, its well-laid boardwalks, its extensive nature signage indicating routes as well as the commoner birds and mammals you’ll likely encounter, and the number of people who obviously use the area as it was intended-as a place to walk and enjoy watching nature-what could possibly explain the fact that the city of Nikko is suffering from a decrease in tourism revenue?

Without having done the research, any answers to this question are purely speculative, but a conversation with one of Nikko’s city planners was instructive. First, she showed me a copy of the latest PR brochure, a glossy, obviously expensive pamphlet that the city distributed for free. On the cover was the spectacular pagoda found inside Toshogu Shrine. Inside there were a series of nature photographs setting off Nikko’s beauty to great advantage, and a road map with two trails marked off. Neither of these trails was particularly walkable for the average tourist: the loop around Lake Chuzenji is 12 miles, and the one through Lakes Kirikomi and Karikomi is an exhausting six-hour slog. The rest of the pamphlet was a laundry list of every possible facility, museum, place to go or thing to see in the vicinity, up to and including the baseball field, city tennis courts and gym.

A second, A4-sized pamphlet entitled "Four Seasons in Nikko," promised to be somewhat more coherent. The first two pages listed and photographed three montane wildflowers. The second two pages listed three birds and pasted up a table of hiking courses. Then there were four entire pages of woodcarving information, two full pages for skiing and skating (Nikko’s single ski slope is one of the oldest, shortest, easiest, most boring runs in Japan), with the last two pages reserved for the Holy Trinity of temples, shrines and history-a holy trinity that had no apparent connection to the title of the brochure.

With respect to general information, both pamphlets were chock full of it. But as an inducement to come and visit this fantastic area, they failed on all counts. I asked whom the city was targeting with this promotional material.

"What do you mean?" the city officical asked.

"I mean what segment of the tourist market are you trying to attract?"

"All of it," she promptly responded.

With the possible exception of the nuclear war business, no business targets everyone. And the businesses that do target everyone wind up hitting none.

Therein lies one of Nikko’s biggest problems. As a metatourism site, it has tremendous resources. But it has no one clear message aimed at any particular segment. In the countless trips I have made to this area, the two groups of users at Senjogahara that completely overwhelm everyone else are the fishermen and the hikers. Fishing was mentioned nowhere in any of the brochures, and hikers were supposed to get their blood pumping about a visit to Nikko by looking at a chart.

Birders, who are always present in Senjogahara in varying numbers, have said in Fermata’s U.S. surveys time and time again that the two most critical services an area can provide are 1) a list of the birds at the site, and 2) clear explanations about where and when to find them. "Four Seasons in Nikko" was plainly designed by an ad agency that knew nothing and cared less about the actual mechanics of birding, hiking, fishing or nature watching.

Only the few, the extremely bored and the compelled (as in children) visit places of "general interest." Everyone else goes somewhere for a reason. The first step for Nikko, of course, is to find out who its biggest visitors are. The second step is to put together specific promotional material that will not only make the place seem as alluring as it really is, but will provide detailed, useful information about the particular activity. If most of the users are hikers, why is the city wasting precious ad space talking up its woodcarving?

The answer, obviously, is political. Woodcarvers have been around for a long time (though probably not as long as the forests and rivers), and they play an important part in the art of the city-they also speak more insistently than wildlife. When the city decides to put together an expensive, professionally produced pamphlet, it has to take into account the other pieces of the political pie. That’s why virtually every piece of paper about Nikko has a bone-juicy, full of marrow and still with the bloody meat on it-thrown to the shrines, temples and artisans.

Ironically, this very potluck style of advertising strangles the very people it’s meant to help out. The metatourist birder will be interested in cultural and historical elements-but he will make his primary travel decision about birdwatching, and if the destination can’t deliver that particular pitch, he will not take a swing at it. He will never show up, and the shrines, temples and woodcarvers will never make a penny off him. Same for fishermen, hikers, and every other person who travels to indulge a hobby or a specific interest. On the other hand, if Nikko were to put together a nature tourism package that pushed a unified message and delivered specific, useful information about hiking, for example, and based the program on quantified surveys of usage, market size and cost considerations-a certain percentage of those hikers would also want to partake of the various cultural and historical experiences. But no amount of PR about Nikko’s rich feudal history will prod a visit out of someone whose primary motivation is to tromp around in the woods.

As I walked along the boardwalk the sun finally crested the mountains and spilled sunshine over the entire marsh. I rubbed my frozen hands together and basked for a moment in the dawn warmth. A Black-faced Bunting flew to the top of a silver birch and, turning his gorgeously radiant breast to the morning sun, burst into song. I had not seen more than a handful of the multitudinous birds singing in the trees, but as the bunting warbled his powerful soprano across the breadth of the marsh I realized that you really don’t need all that many birds to watch, as long as you watch carefully.

Then with a flourish a Great Spotted Woodpecker cut out from the woods and landed on a dead tree. He eyed me, and I him. Of the two of us, I’m pretty sure that I was better rewarded aesthetically for my effort. A herd of Japanese Deer moved slowly up the hill on the other side of the marsh, foraging in the grass. "All of this unspeakable beauty," I thought, and breathed in the cold, clean mountain air.

A sampling of birds you can see at Senjogahara:

Ural Owl, Japanese Wagtail, Varied Tit, Azure-winged Magpie, Spot-billed Duck, Eurasian Siskin, Hawfinch, Meadow Bunting, Rustic Bunting, Black-faced Bunting, Common Cuckoo, Blue-and-White Flycatcher, Narcissus Flycatcher, Common Teal, Mallard, Brown Dipper, Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker, White-backed Woodpecker.

Getting there:

By car

From Tokyo, take the Tohoku Expressway to the Utsunomiya-Nikko Toll Road. This exit is about 110 km from Tokyo. Follow the toll road until it ends, go through the traffic light and the road will wind up to Irohazaka, a road that is choked with traffic when the leaves change color in autumn. The road will finally T-bone in Chuzenji; turn left and keep going for another 5 or 6km. You will climb up over Lake Chuzenji, and once the lake is no longer visible keep your eyes peeled for a small wooden sign on the left that says "Akanuma Parking." Of course it’s in Japanese. You’ll see a small restaurant-type shack that has a parking lot in front of it; this is the place to park and begin the boardwalk, which starts on the other side of the road. Call Nikko’s tourist information bureau (they have people who speak English) at 0288-54-2496 before you leave and they’ll send you a bunch of pamphlets and maps, some of which are in English.

By train

Train is easier to get to Nikko, but from Nikko to Senjogahara you have to take a very slow, very lurching bus that stops what seems like every six or seven feet. You have choices, too. From Tokyo Station take the Tohoku Shinkansen, get off at Utsunomiya Station and switch to the JR Nikko Line. It’s 45 minutes to Nikko from Utsunomiya. From Nikko JR Station, walk up the street and to Nikko Tobu Station, where you catch the bus for Yumoto Onsen. Get off at the Akanuma stop. The other train option is to take the Tobu Nikko Express from Asakusa Tobu Station. It’s a 101 minute shot, no changes. From the station, take the Yumoto Onsen bus as mentioned before. The bus ride takes about an hour to Akanuma.

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