Holiday in Fukushima? 12 years after earthquake and tsunami Tohoku, Japan shifts from dark tourism to ‘hope tourism’, with tours focused on its rebuilding

Northeast Japan has had enough of being a dark tourism destination following the devastation wrought by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami

It is launching a scheme to promote tours that showcase the region’s reconstruction. Fukushima, where the tsunami caused nuclear disaster, could be a hard sell

Reading Time:4 minutes

A tsunami wall in Rikuzentakata, in Japan’s Tohoku region. A new “hope tourism” initiative aims to change the region’s image for tourists by focusing on reconstruction, 12 years after a huge undersea earthquake triggered a devastating tsunami. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 1:15pm, 23 Jul 2023Updated: 1:34pm, 23 Jul 2023

After more than a decade as a “dark tourism” destination, the northern part of Honshu – Japan’s largest island – is reinventing itself to offer travellers a distinctly different experience: reconstruction tourism.

The aim, organisers say, is to shift visitors’ attention away from areas that were devastated by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, which killed more than 20,000 people.

Instead of shock at the still evident scars of the worst natural disaster to strike Japan in living memory, the idea is to show how towns and villages across Tohoku – the name of the region comprising the six prefectures in northern Honshu – are building back better.

The initiative is being led by the government’s Reconstruction Agency, set up in the aftermath of the magnitude-9 quake, and is supported by rail operator JR East, airlines, prefectural governments and Japan’s largest travel agencies.

Sendai, the largest city in the Tohoku region, was badly damaged in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Twelve years on, the focus is on showing how towns and cities in Japan’s northeast are bouncing back. Photo: Getty Images

A new organisation to promote opportunities to witness how the Tohoku region is being rebuilt is scheduled to commence operations on July 25.

Holiday in Fukushima? 12 years after earthquake and tsunami Tohoku, Japan shifts from dark tourism to ‘hope tourism’, with tours focused on its rebuilding

Northeast Japan has had enough of being a dark tourism destination following the devastation wrought by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami It is launching a scheme to promote tours that showcase the region’s reconstruction. Fukushima, where the tsunami caused nuclear disaster, could be a hard sell

Northeast Japan has had enough of being a dark tourism destination following the devastation wrought by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami

It is launching a scheme to promote tours that showcase the region’s reconstruction. Fukushima, where the tsunami caused nuclear disaster, could be a hard sell