Here’s some tourism news about Kumamoto. I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news regards cruise ships coming to Yatsushiro port.
First, the following Japanese article, which came out in May of this year, says that the port is expecting 75 cruise ship visits this year, 7.5 times last year:
http://www.sankei.com/region/news/170526/rgn1705260016-n1.html
The next article, also in Japanese, says that they are doing work on Yatsushiro port to make it possible for 220,000 ton cruise ships to dock there. The work is scheduled to be completed by March of 2020, in time for the olympics.
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXLZO11845140Y7A110C1LX0000/
The bad is that 2016, the year the earthquake hit, was a bad year for tourism – no surprise there. The number of foreign tourists visiting Kumamoto dropped to 4.6 million, down about a million from the previous year. It was the first time to go under a million in 9 years.
On the positive side, I think the increase in cruise ships and other factors should lead to significantly better numbers in coming years.
– Kirk