Foreign tourists in a disaster-hit Japan: Follow drones to safety

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In Beppu -- a coastal city in Oita prefecture that is known for its more than 2,000 onsen hot spring spas -- a public-private tourism promotion organization in July will launch an app that can give visitors disaster and tourism information in English, Chinese and Korean. The app will list earthquake and hospital information, and also locations of evacuation centers. It will also tell users how long it will take to get to one of these shelters.

Since February, the Kyoto city office has posted QR codes on 300 information boards and other displays at popular tourist spots. Holding a smartphone's reader up to the codes brings users to a website that carries hazard information in five languages. The city office has also distributed 200 stickers with the QR code to lodging facilities and other places.

There are also multilingual evacuation guidance programs. In Asakusa, Tokyo, the Asakusa Tourism Federation, the Taito Ward office and other parties in March jointly conducted an evacuation drill on the assumption of a major earthquake hitting the area, which is centered around Sensoji Temple. The drill included flying a drone to deliver evacuation guidance in English and Chinese. The drone was designed to find foreign tourist hot spots, then guide visitors to a nearby evacuation center.

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Learning lessons from that temblor and other disasters, the Japan Tourism Agency decided to subsidize local governments that provide tablets and other effective means of supporting foreign visitors in times of disaster. When a disaster hits a place crowded with inbound and other visitors, "people can be panic-stricken" without appropriate instructions such as evacuation guidance, the agency said.

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