Development Path of Industrial Heritage Tourism: A Case Study of Kitakyushu (Japan)

Industrial heritage tourism is aimed at promoting sustainable development in the regional social economy. Japan published Heritage Constellations of Industrial Modernization in 2007 and 2008, and treated them as an important resource to promote the activation of the local economy. Evolutionary economic geography offers a useful framework for studying the evolution of industries and has already been applied to study the different types of tourism destinations, what is often unclear, however, is under what conditions declining industrial cities can be transformed into an industrial heritage tourism destination and by whom. Thus, this article tries to employ the EEG approach to understand the development of industrial heritage tourism in Japan, using Kitakyushu City as a case. The case of Kitakyushu City illustrates the importance of initial conditions and stakeholder collaboration in promote the development of industrial heritage tourism. The results of this study also showed that participation of community residents and the application of new technologies, strong support from national and local governments are critical to the new path creation.