Tokushima seeks to liven up Awa Odori dance festival amid tourism boom

A beautiful photograph...!

I like going to Tokushima but would avoid at the time of the festival. I like it because it’s quiet and even though we only go a couple of times a year the store owners always recognise us and thank us for returning. Decent JR hotel there next to station, if you’re a member sometimes have last minute deals can get 27 sq meter room for as low as 10000 a night, during pandemic we managed to get 2 night for 140

Its like an extension of Osaka in the way the city feels, people are pretty laid back and prices are cheap.

Think it’s the only prefecture that doesn’t have a department store.

I love Japan matsuris..

Go Awa Odori !!!...

ranked at 46th among the country's 47 prefectures in terms of the number of guest rooms at accommodation facilities in fiscal 2022. It was also 46th in the number of overnight stays in 2023.

46th? That's last two from the bottom. Tell us how to get there? From big cities?

If someone want to go to Kyoto Gyon matsuri from Tokyo, Chiba or Yokohama, they only need to take local train from their homes and use Shinkansen to Tokyo. Try to do that to Tokushima, you need to change transportation mode multiple times.

Sakura

Easy to get there from Osaka. Get Nankai train and ferry, 2500 per person from Nankai Namba station. Takes just over three hours to get there. Taxi from ferry is about 1200 yen to center and there’s buses for a couple of hundred Ywn. Mind you, I’d prefer it doesn’t get a tourist invasion, it would lose its charm you see.

@falseflagsteve

You just show that you need to use multiple mode, and it's not for everyone.

Sakura

No I didn’t, it’s using one ticket.

Maybe good people have you mindset and don’t go there, I’d rather it stays as it is.

Also can get a coach from Namba, Umeda or Sannomiya, is that a single enough mode for you?

Sakurasuki

you can fly from Tokyo for ¥10,000.

I would love to go. Too late for this holiday, so I’ll plan in advance next year.

I recommend hiring a car , in Annan, or similar, and driving the coast road around to Kochi, then up through the centre of Shikoku.

Good roads and generally, low speed limit.

Shikoku has a lot to offer.

Why not build a tourist village in Tokushima, and hold a version of the Awa-Odori every weekend for tourists? That way the revenue - and incoming tourists - will be spread out year-round for this enormously popular festival, placing less strain on the infrastructure.

Fighto..."build a tourist village "?

Yeah buddy...that would retain the "authenticity ", wouldn't it ?......Not !

Tourist village become ghost village more like it.

Why not build a tourist village in Tokushima, and hold a version of the Awa-Odori every weekend for tourists? That way the revenue - and incoming tourists - will be spread out year-round for this enormously popular festival, placing less strain on the infrastructure.

This is actually a good idea. The turn-off of course is "authenticity", but lots of things in Japan are not authentic or nowhere near as historic as claimed. As an article said recently, this even includes teishoku style Japanese food, which as part of "washoku" has been registered at the UN as "special culture". Most castles in Japan are replicas. That doesn't stop people going to them. Something like half the houses at World Heritage site Shirakawa-Go were moved there when a dam was built. That's not a traditional village as is. Lots of information about Shirakawa-go is also (massively) hyped. There is no record of the word "gassho zukuri" being used in Japanese before the late 1920s, by which time such houses were no longer being built.

Lots of tourists interested in ninja, samurai, or geisha will be given information and shown stuff that is unrepresentative and dubious, but plays into what they want to believe about such roles. So long as places of suffering tell visitors the truth, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, mines with indentured labour, folk musuems trying to depict peasant life during Edo etc., it doesn't bother me if other aspects of history, especially the sexy bits like ninja, are jazzed up for the punters.

The Awa Odori cultural center in downtown Tokushima was recently renovated for visitors to get a glimpse of the fest, and they seem to have dancers on staff who do daily performances.

One reason why there arent so-called festival villages is that joining a dance group is a chance to get out of your town and tour a bit. There are not carnival theme villages in Brazil, instead touring groups make a parade.

To the point about ninjas and samurai, they had nothing to do with entertaining tourists in the first place, so being situated in that realm as they now are is a big stretch.

No need to build a whole village...

As noted by @TorafusuTorasan the Awa Odori Kaikan located just on the western edge of Tokushima city's (rather vacant and desolate) downtown does about 5 live dance performances throughout the day, every day of the week.

Shikoku is great for the feel of ‘old Japan’ but it’s not convenient to travel around without a car…

Why not build a tourist village in Tokushima, and hold a version of the Awa-Odori every weekend for tourists?

And call it Nippon-mura. And have all the clichés there just for the tourists and they need never go anywhere else. Tourist problems solved for the locals.

Good post too, kohakuebisu.