A strategy for organizing Sake brewery tourism: A case study of sixteen Sake brewery models in Japan

Abstract

Due to a reduction of sake consuming in Japan, Japanese government had to stimulate income of domestic sake consumption. Consequently, the government announced a Cool Japan Policy to promote this brewery industry by introducing a brewery tour. Brewery tour is several alcohol drinks. This article studies only sake brewery tourism. A concept of the brewery tour did not only mean taking tourists to visit local brewery producers but also included taking them around to other attractions such as Japanese restaurants, sake museums, temples, shrines, local groceries, souvenir shops, etc. The local brewery tour helped to distribute income within its community. This also stimulated income in each local economy within Japan. A target group of the brewery tour contained foreign tourists and those who enjoyed drinking sake. This article showed interesting strategies for organizing a brewery tour from sixteen brewery model producers which were selected from the National Tax Agency Japan. The article compiled a variety of strategies for promoting the tour and also included SWOT analysis in order to indicate strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in organizing the sake brewery tourism in Japan.