Inbound Japan

Daiki, a composite 34-year-old running his grandfather's 20-room lodge in Hakuba, caps sales at 14 rooms and turns down an Australian operator's six-week block booking after two housekeepers quit. A story about Japan's lodging labour shortage, and the choice a future founder has to make between filling rooms and keeping a promise the team can actually keep. BGM: "Brittle Rille" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.

Can tourism spread beyond the Golden Route without exporting its problems? Ryo and Aiko are turning a farmhouse in a Nagano mountain valley into a five-room guesthouse when a US tour operator offers them six weeks of guests — at a discount, on the operator's timetable. A story about dispersal, who decides what a place becomes, and what only that valley can offer. Figures from the Japan Tourism Agency and JNTO. BGM: "Folk Round" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), CC BY.

One innkeeper, two envelopes: Sanae's renovation choice opens Japan's argument over whether tourism money should chase foreign visitors or the domestic guests who fill rooms in February. Three numbers, one story, and a founder's question at the end. BGM: Meditation Impromptu 01 by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), CC BY.