The Tourism Industry and Universities in Collaboration
"The Senior Summer College" is gradually gaining popularity in Japan. A learning course for seniors over 50 years of age are arranged at university campuses. A 2-week/20 classes program offers seniors opportunity to attend various lectures prepared by each university and region. Participants have access to most of the campus facilities, including library and computer rooms as regularly as the enrolled students.
Hiroshi Shinozaki Columnist
The Senior Summer College is a new type of educational exchange program. It provides a favorable lifetime learning occasion to seniors and retirees who might not be satisfied with classes at culture centers. Universities are so enthusiastic about hosting the course that some lectures are given by university presidents themselves. The Senior Summer College started at Yamaguchi University and Hirosaki University in 2006 as a joint program of the National University Corporations and JTB. In 2007, the program extended to five Universities, Hokkaido, Hirosaki, Iwate, Shinshu and Gifu. Following the success of JTB, other travel companies such as Kinki Nippon Tourists began sponsoring similar programs.
Started out with 64 participants in 2006, the Senior Summer College had 204 enrollments in 2007* and the reputation of program is currently quite high. Not only attending classes, participants also take initiative to organize social gatherings or share their free time activities for further communication with their ‘class mates’.
The Senior Summer College offers a membership program; its members are provided with information and invited to mock lectures. Such approaches motivate members to sign up again for the program next year.
For local governments which host the program, participants of The Senior Summer College are favorable visitors. While most overnight visitors stay only for one night, program participants normally stay for two weeks for the course. The Senior Summer College is, in this sense, expected to be a good trigger to expand “supporter of the region”.
With the aging society to proceed and the birth rate to drop, such collaboration model of tourism industry and universities is highly expected to revitalize Japan’s domestic travel market, which has been on long decline. The Senior Summer College can be regarded as a project comprehending the four keywords to vitalize domestic travel market in Japan; “long term stay” “locality” “learning” and “people”.
*Number of participants handled by JTB
