Amid shrinking domestic consumption, foreign tourists will be a quick remedy to revitalize consumption. Such small hospitality gestures, including offering restaurant menus with photos, will certainly

Does this idiot really think that an increase of even 1 million tourists a year will offset the fact that Japan is losing 250,000 people a year?

Even if the average tourist spends 200,000 yen in their visit after airfare, that's not going to offset the drop in domestic consumption from the year round loss of population and consumption.

In addition, the money will only go into the areas and industries that are close to the tourist areas. Your average Taro Six-pack in Niigata isn't going to be seeing any of that money.

I think you need to offer more than just picture menus to get people to want to spend their money in Japan...

How can you expect to bring tourists to Japan when the bars & restaurants have such a foul atmosphere - filled with tobacco smoke. Some pictures on a menu will not compensate for that.

Does he want to pay for the cost of printing menus with photos? I think Japan is great when it comes to such menus, and even those places without photo menus or boards on the counter or somewhere that have photos will sometimes have an English menu (or even one in Chinese or Korean), and it's great he wants to do more, but I think a FAR more pressing issue is trying to welcome tourists is getting police to crack down on racist groups like the Zaitokukai. Just a few days ago I was showing some friends around Yasaka Shrine, Chi-On In, Kodai-Ji, Kiyomizu Temple, Gion, and other places in Kyoto in that area and some people from the group were there screaming hatred with no police and nobody doing a thing about it. I explained a little bit about the group and translated some of the things they were shouting, and even though the group didn't target us (at least not directly) my friends couldn't understand why police didn't break it up. And my friends don't even know the history of it or that the group targets school children, and people who were born here and pay taxes. I can't imagine any Koreans, and they make up a HUGE part of tourists coming to Japan, and of course there are Zainichi living here who travel to see the wonders of Kyoto, who can't be that happy about this sort of 'welcome'. I've no doubt that leading up to and during the Olympics the police will crack down hard on such groups, especially in and around Tokyo or any police that might get negative coverage by international media, but if Japan truly wants to welcome all tourists more needs to be done NOW, EVERYWHERE in the nation, and needs to be upheld.

Fortunately the aforementioned nutbags are the radical fringe, but they sure like to make it look like they are more than just a pathetic group of people who DEPEND on others to keep them going. Other changes that have been going on with more languages on signboards and information in various languages, including disaster info, are positive steps (and again, wingers complain about the languages on the sign, and even some commentors on here do as well!).