Participant name: Mr.Elgun Javadov
Program name: Tourism Development Policies
Program period: September 17 – October 24, 2018
Mr. Elgun Javadov is on the left
Before deciding to participate in JICA course in Japan, I knew that it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. During 38 days, I learned, experienced and tried to understand. This was the most important gain for me.
Tourism Development Policies course was organized by JICA Hokuriku in the framework of cooperation with JTB Corporation. Course was designed on different modules for understanding current issues, improving data utilization capacity, learning Japanese tourism policies at different levels and formulating action plan based on learnings.
Through geographic approach, our training course was divided into two parts: Tokyo and Hokuriku region periods. We stayed in JICA Tokyo center participating in different lectures about Japanese tourism regulations, organizations, promotion and visiting different places as Japan Expo 2018, JATA office, Agency of Cultural Affairs, Tokyo Haneda Airport International Terminal, Teikyo University during first 18 days. Before moving to Hokuriku region, we visited Kyoto city for understanding how Japan conserves and promotes cultural resources, and deals with the main tourism organizational issues in the city. The rest of our training days passed in different cities of Hokuriku region, such as Kanazawa, Wajima, Hokui, Tateyama, Toyama. We had a chance to receive theoretical and practical knowledge by assisting lectures and visiting field trips.
We stayed one night at Japanese inn farmhouse. It was irreplaceable experience to understand how local people could be engaged in tourism activities and preserve their lifestyle in rural area. We had an opportunity to stay also in gasshō style house in Gokayama area (Ainokura village) which is listed as UNESCO World Heritage site.
Every lecture and field trip was very informative and useful to think and imagine how to improve tourism in Azerbaijan. I must highlight how Japanese people are hardworking and hospitable. Despite of langugage barrier, they showed us their high level of hospitability and treated us as the important guests at every chance. With a beautiful sincere smile on thier faces, language was not anymore a barrier for us.
My prejudgement about Japan as “another planet” was approved after this course. Thanks to this course, I gained new friends from different countries and this lifetime experience strenghented my belief to build better future.
By using this opportunity, I would like to thank to JICA and Government of Japan as well as all people engaged in organization of Tourism Development Policies course for enabling my participation in this training course. My special thanks to Mr. Aritsune Okuda, Ms. Tomoko Nishida and Mr. Takao Mori for assisting us at every moment and helping us to benefit from this training.
