No.130 Attended Cyclo Summit

From September 17th to 18th, the 4th National Cyclo Summit was held in Minamiuonuma City, Niigata Prefecture, and I participated for the first time.

This summit is hosted by the National Association of Mayors of Municipalities Promoting Urban Development Using Bicycles. held in the city. After that, due to the spread of COVID-19, the third event was postponed and changed to a web-based event, and after that it was suspended.

On the first day, the board meeting was held at the Yamato Community Center in Minamiuonuma City, and the summit was held in the hall of the community center.

In the keynote speech, representatives of companies and organizations that practice cycle tourism and Mr. Kaneko, Counselor of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Bicycle Utilization Promotion Headquarters talked about examples of bicycle utilization. The panel discussion was coordinated by Mr. Shinobu Miyauchi, who is currently a researcher at the NPO Nihon Keizai Kaido Community. From the keynote speech and panel discussion, I have just renewed my recognition of the possibilities of cycle tourism.

In a nutshell, cycle tourism is tourism that utilizes bicycles, but the main purpose is to ride a bicycle itself, to use a bicycle to visit famous historic sites and enjoy gourmet food, and to travel and leisure. There are various things such as those using bicycles on the way and events related to bicycles. In this case report, it was introduced that the inbound of Westerners who enjoy guided tours will continue to be promising in the future. These people are high-income earners who stay in Japan for long vacations, and we can expect to spend a lot of money. It seems that tours accompanied by bicycles with English-speaking guides were popular even before the new corona. In anticipation of the after-coronavirus, it seems that they are also developing new routes and self-guided tours that download the recommended route app to their smartphones and go around the course themselves. Aside from whether or not it involves accommodation, I thought that cycle tourism is a promising tourism business that can be tackled in various regions.

In the morning of the second day of the summit, we rented an electric sports bicycle (E-Bike) and rode a part of the "Snow Country Uonuma Golden Cycle Route" for about 25 kilometers. I myself have never traveled such a long distance by bicycle, so I was worried about whether I would be able to complete the whole course. I was able to enjoy the rural scenery of Minami-Uonuma and Mt. Hakkai (a mountain, not a drink).

In the afternoon, a bicycle race called "Criterium" was held in conjunction with this summit, and we, the Association of Mayors of Municipalities, ran one lap as a parade before starting the main race.

This summit was a good opportunity to think about community development using bicycles over the two days. Since Inagi City has become a cycling road race course for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, it has professed to be a “cycling town, Inagi”, and will continue to work on various bicycle measures to leave a legacy of the Olympics.