Socio-economic Change of Islands and Development Policies in the Seto Inland Sea of Japan <Articles>

In this article the socio-economic change of Islands and development policies in the Seto Inland Sea of Japan will be discussed. In the former half of this article, various problems particular to the islands will be sorted out. In order to examine the problems, it will be clarified that socio-economic changes in various relations between the mainland and the islands are generating many different problems today. In the latter half, a framework for the development of the islands is suggested, especially from the viewpoints of sustainable tourism development including a case of the Miyajima Island, and important measures to cope with those problems are discussed. Especially, the relationship between community and tourism is focussed here. In today's economy with its highly developed service sector the tourism industry has come to occupy an important position and is now an inseparable part of the fabric of many communities especially in the islands.