Joe Tomei here. As Kirk noted, things are heating up on the tourist front at Aso (perhaps not the best metaphor, but I trust you understand) and on 14 April, there is a program featuring a talk by Austrian Japanologist Josef Kreiner, emeritus professor from Bonn University. Attached is a flyer for the event. The talk is free and will be in Japanese, and his topic is “The study of regional Japanese culture from Kunio Yanagita onwards” (apologies for my poor translation)
Kunio Yanagita was a famous Japanese scholar who founded the field of minzokugaku, or Japanese folklore studies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunio_Yanagita
There is also an exhibition of photos from Aso that will be open from 14-20 April.