Imagined Empire Building through Tourism : How the Japanese Travelled in Their Colonies

This paper reviews the literature on tourism within Imperial Japan to see how tourism worked in building an imagined empire. Among elements of tourism, a major role in the process was played by promoters, including the government, the industry, and media. They became a groundwork to promote a perception of the hierarchy within the Empire through directing ‘tourist gaze’. The Japanese mainlander tourists accepted the official tourist gaze, and approved, even unintentionally, the Japanese Empire. Meanwhile, the colonised areas reacted to the Japanese tourism in their own manners, according to the situation where they were placed. Although further studies are required, reviewing literatures from a communication perspective led us to see how tourism was used in empire building in Japanese people’s perception and how intercultural interactions was thwarted in the process.