Kyoto partners with e-gift service company to let tourists Donate & Go

There are around 40,000 traditional Japanese townhouses, known as machiya, in Kyoto. However, given the effort and cost needed for the city to maintain them, around 800 are lost each year — a pace that will see them all vanish in 50 years if no action is taken.

But action isn’t cheap.

This is what the city of Kyoto claims on its website, Preserve Kyoto, in an effort to incentivize foreigners, even tourists, to offer a helping hand to the city and participate in the cause to sustain its rich history and beauty.

“Instead of working on it with just the city of Kyoto, we want to get some help from both people within Japan and abroad to protect and preserve the important cultural values that Kyoto possesses, all under the understanding that Kyoto’s assets are not only the city’s, but a treasure for both Japan and the world,” said Yuya Kawata, the director of the Kyoto Revitalization Section in the city office.

He explained that, for decades, the local government has continued to put in a lot of effort to preserve the city’s history and artifacts but that it is getting increasingly difficult for the people of Kyoto to do so on their own, especially as increased tourist numbers put a strain on the city.

Struggling on its own to get this message across to tourists, the city teamed up with Giftee, an e-gift service company that had been well aware of the issue’s prevalence, not just in Kyoto, but in various tourist destinations across the nation.

Together — and with the cooperation of Niseko Kutchan Tourism Association, Osaka Gas and Japan Airlines — they established Donate & Go, a new service aimed at foreign tourists that allows them to contribute financially toward the preservation of certain cities and their treasures while receiving a gift in return. The service kicked off in Kyoto last month.

While most overtourism prevention measures have up until now been focused on dispersing crowds of tourists from metropolitan areas, Donate & Go takes the approach of embracing foreign tourists and working hand-in-hand with them toward a solution.

“(Donate & Go) could be a new way for foreigners to enjoy traveling in Japan, where getting to know and supporting local communities become part of the enjoyment, while at the same time receiving a little of what each region of Japan has to offer in return in order to experience it even more,” said Goro Mori, project director at Giftee. “It would be great if this could be a new style of tourism that people think is a part of Japanese culture.”

The service is set to be implemented in the Niseko area of Hokkaido, by December, with plans to expand it further to even more cities in the hopes that it will be a new, unique countermeasure for overtourism that can lead to sustainable tourism.

Travelers visiting a particular destination can read up on the region and its preservation efforts on a webpage that could be reached, for example, by scanning a QR code on a pamphlet. The city of Kyoto has such a webpage, aptly named Preserve Kyoto.

After getting to know the city on a deeper level, visitors can opt to donate any amount they choose toward the city’s efforts through the webpage. The donor will then be electronically awarded a certain proportion of their donation as a “return gift” in the form of electronic money that can be used at partner stores or entertainment facilities in the city.

For Kyoto, the value of the return gift is set at 50% of the donation, meaning that if someone donates ¥10,000, then ¥5,000 will be gifted back to them.

The return gifts also have the power to disperse tourists and attract them to hole-in-the-wall restaurants and entertainment facilities that they may not have otherwise found, thanks to a map showing locations where they can be used, as well as pointing out the availability of Wi-Fi and the location of halal and vegetarian dining options. As of now, it can be used at more than 380 stores and other facilities — including restaurants and museums in Kyoto. Tourists can unlock new experiences even if it’s their second or third visit, and in turn helping local businesses that may not have had much traffic before.

The donations are handed to local authorities that can then use them for various projects that are publicized on the webpage, such as repairing the roofs of machiya and restoring historic buildings.

As the service expands, Giftee is working toward allowing donors to use the money gifted to them in places beyond where they made donations to.

For example, visitors who donate to Niseko who travel to Kyoto afterward would be able to use the e-money they received in Niseko at participating stores in Kyoto. By extending the service to more cities, Mori hopes that a sustainable way of traveling can be realized across the nation.

Kyoto city office’s Kawata expressed hopes that tourists would be able to enjoy a new form of tourism through Donate & Go in that they don’t just visit places but really get to know them on a deeper level and be involved in bringing positive changes to the local community.

“If people can feel that they are not just visiting Kyoto to play, but that they are becoming a part of the community through this project, there could be a sense of unity,” he said.

Although it is difficult to gauge reception of the service since it only took off recently, Takashi Kawaguchi, assistant director of the Kyoto Revitalization Section of the city government said that in the first week of Donate & Go’s operations, the city was contacted by a tourist from Taiwan who said that he felt compelled to donate even in the absence of the return gift upon seeing information on the city’s preservation efforts since he had visited Kyoto 16 times and loved the city, and wanted to help in any way that he could.

Kawata added that the city’s surveys have discovered other visitors expressing similar sentiment in relation to its efforts toward sustainable tourism, with many saying they wanted to contribute but did not know how. He said he hopes that Donate & Go will be a way to reach such fans of the city.

Giftee’s Mori said that he hopes a more positive relationship can emerge through the recognition among local residents that foreign visitors also appreciate what they themselves treasure about the city, and are willing to contribute toward maintaining it. This understanding could allow room for both sides to work hand-in-hand toward the goal of preserving the city.

Mori added that he envisions a positive cycle of foreign tourists getting to know Japan better and then becoming catalysts for change in the cities, and in exchange Japan gifting them opportunities to experience the culture of the community better — something that would be perfect for everyone, and a much happier overtourism countermeasure for all involved.

“Of course Japan will continue to make efforts to preserve its culture, but if everyone who visits the (tourist) areas also understands what’s needed (to preserve the culture) and travels in the sustainable style of Donate & Go, not only can you (as a tourist) enjoy it this year, but also your children and your grandchildren can experience the same things when they visit Japan in the future,” said Mori. “We are trying to create a travel style that can sustain a world like that.”