No Room at the Inn & CNN.com

I read a few different online news sites (mostly from the US) to try to keep up with what's goin on in the world, but lately I've noticed that CNN has been posting quite a lot of short and very quirky articles about Japan, many of them featured on their front screen.

I thought I would share the latest, about Japan's tourism industry's discomfort with accomodating foreigners.

According to the article, "No Room at the Inn for Foreigners", a survey conducted by Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and released this week shows that 70% o the Japanese inns and hotels said they "don't have facilities for foreigners". Over 70% of the places that didn't have foreign guests in the last year also said they don't want any - now or in the future.

Japan can be a pretty easy place to get around, with it's modern transportation systems and cultural fascination with the West (so things may be more familiar here than in, say, China), yet I am not totally surprised by the findings if this survey. I am just curious how these inns would define "accomodations" for westerners. I think many tourists to Japan would prefer to try sleeping on a Japanese futon instead of a western bed, even if it means they are on the tatami floor. Assuming foreigners can't handle this is simply naivity... but it's also commonplace and a byproduct of the strong culture and heritage Japan has retained and works hard to preserve.

Anyways, I might post more of the interesting tidbits here from time to time, but it's funny to see how Japan projects itself to the rest of the world (or at least to see what the rest of the world picks up).