Japanese cities attracting tourists with manhole cards
TOKYO: A total of 1.4 million manhole cards, featuring pictures of manhole covers with unique local designs, have been issued since the cards were launched in April 2016, a group promoting the appeal of manholes has said.
The free cards have gradually gained popularity with collectors because they have a consistent format nationwide, but each type is only available in the municipality where the manhole covers shown exist.
With the release of the sixth series of cards on Dec 9, there are now cards for municipalities in all prefectures. Local governments are promoting them to attract card collectors for regional sightseeing.
On the morning of Dec 9, a 59year-old company employee who lives in Yokohama visited the Nagayama Kominkan public hall in Tama, Tokyo, where he received a card of a local manhole cover featuring the popular character Hello Kitty. He smiled and said, “After I began collecting manhole cards, I started looking down at the ground when I was walking along the street.”
Because there is a Sanrio Puroland amusement park in Ta ma, the city government adopted the Sanrio brand’s Kitty character for two kinds of its manhole cards - the sewer and rainwater drain versions - and printed 10,000 cards for each version. On the first day of their distribution, about 20 people lined up to get them.
According to the city, 1,961 cards were distributed in the first four days through Dec 12, with 65 per cent of the recipients flocking from other municipalities.
An official of Tama’s sewage division said: “It’s a good start. The results are better than we expected.”
After getting a card, many people actually visit the places where the hatch is placed.
On the remote island of Ikinoshima - an hour’s ride by speedboat from Hakata Port in Fukuoka - the Iki city government joined the sixth series, issuing cards of a manhole cover featuring a traditional ogre-shaped kite called ondako. From Dec 9 through Dec 12, about 100 people visited the island to get the cards, including visitors from as far away as Shiga Prefecture and even Hokkaido.
The city government and other entities will organise in spring an overnight tour allowing participants to visit local manhole covers and an island sightseeing spot called Saruiwa, a rock formation shaped like a monkey.
Meanwhile, the Hiroshima municipal government has been issuing cards of a manhole cover depicting Carp Boya - the boy mascot character of the Hiroshima Carp baseball team - since April 2016. For people who want to collect the card, the city has set a requirement that applicants visit a rainwater reservoir facility in the basement of Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium in the city beforehand. As a result, the number of visitors to the facility in fiscal 2016 surged to 1,616, nearly triple the figure from the previous fiscal year, with the popularity continuing this fiscal year at a similar level, sources said.
The municipal government of Maebashi issued its version of manhole cards in December 2016. As a further promotion, the city put 10 used steel manhole covers on sale in August and September last year. The 40-kilogram metal disks, 60 cm in diameter, sold for 3,000 yen each.
An official of the city’s waterworks bureau said, “Before the sale started, I was wondering if there was anybody who would want to buy them.” The results were surprising to the official, as they received 193 applications from all over the country. There were 41 applications for the most popular cover. The city government is considering selling more manhole covers.
Commenting on the trend, Tokai University Prof. Takayoshi Kawai - who is well versed in government public relations - said publicizing local attractions through manhole cards “is less expensive than using yurukyara mascot characters and promotional videos. It’s a highly cost-effective means (of regional promotion) for local governments as the cards also can draw collectors to their regions.” Kawai added, “If the municipalities can promote their local attractions while collectors are visiting the municipalities, it could attract (card recipients) to travel to local tourist attractions or become repeat travellers to their regions.”
The manhole card project was launched by a group called Ge sui do Koho Platform (GKP) - a sewerage publicity organisation made up of the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry, an association of the sewerage industry and other organisations. On the front of each card, a photo of a manhole cover is printed with the longitude and latitude of its location, with an explanation of the background of the design written on the back of the card.
Each of the cards - which measure 6.3 cm by 8.8 cm - has a serial number in order to appeal to collectors, a GKP official said.