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In the past, the profit from property investments was always higher than that from other assets, because of the expectation of high rates of increase in land prices. However, as Japan′s economic growth has been slowing down, these circumstances for property investments have changed. The income yield rate of commercial property investments in Tokyo decreased sharply from 1982 to 1987 because of the sharp increase in land prices. Though commercial land prices in Tokyo have decreased since 1992, the income yield rate is too low because of decrease of office rents. If the income yield rate does not increase, demand for commercial property investments will not recover because a high rate of increase in land prices cannot be expected in the future.

Using brand netnography (analyzing consumers' first‐person on‐line stories that include discussions of their product and brand use), this article aims to probe how visitors interpret the places, people, and situations that they experience while traveling in Japan.

Through analysis of online consumer stories about their trip experiences, Heider's balance theory is applied to visitors' trip experiences. Follow‐up contact with the consumers allows application of autodriving methodology to gather additional post‐trip insights.

The results show immediate and downstream positive and negative associations of concepts, events, and outcomes in visitors' stories. Maps of consumer stories identify kernel concepts and include descriptions of how visitors live a specific destination's unique promises (e.g. distinct cultural history). Using the kernel concepts as a basis, Holt's five‐step strategy for building icons is applied to the travel destination to show how a destination can create a brand identity.

Bloggers reporting their travel experience may not be representative of the population of travelers. On the other hand, travel blogs potentially can influence trip planning by other visitors collecting travel information.

Blog reports represent an unobtrusive method of collecting emic interpretive information from consumers. Emic reporting provides deep insights about consumers' trip interpretations. Tourism and hospitality managers can use this information to improve service experiences and design communication strategies to strengthen positive iconic imagery reported by consumers.

Emic and etic interpretations of travel experiences create a bricolage of the travelers' experiences. Autodriving methodology is extended to tourism research to gather additional insights and to better clarify informants' interpretations. This article also expands on a revisionist proposal to Holt's five‐step strategy for building destinations as iconic brands and suggestions for tourism management.

The purpose of this paper is to draw lessons for developing community‐university partnerships from experiences in promoting coastal education for sustainable development (ESD).

Qualitative data collected from two coastal community outreach projects were analyzed.

The outreach projects improved the relationship between university and community members. It is important to conduct interviews at the early stages of the projects to understand the needs of the community and set project outcomes to meet community‐defined priorities. The most effective means for promoting an ESD program based upon community‐university partnerships is to reach out to and network with local individuals who have been active in community projects and embed the program concept into the activities of those individuals. Mediators who link the academic community with the local community are helpful in promoting the partnerships, and university students were found to be successful mediators.

On the basis of the experiences gained from starting an ESD program in the community, this research provides some clues to initiate service learning or community‐based research based upon community‐university partnerships.

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have transformed the global outlook for international higher education. Given the rapid shift to online learning, the Tokyo Convention in the Asia-Pacific entrusted to UNESCO has become an important policy framework to facilitate regional collaboration, authoritative information sharing and recognition of qualifications across diverse modes of learning. This paper examines the role of the Tokyo Convention to establish an inclusive platform for monitoring and collaborative governance of mobility and internationalization based on fair and transparent recognition policies and practices in the Asia-Pacific.

In August 2019, a standardized survey instrument was sent by the Secretariat of the Tokyo Convention Committee at UNESCO Bangkok to competent recognition authorities in 46 countries in the Asia-Pacific, including the eight State Parties to the Tokyo Convention that ratified the Convention as of the reporting period. In total, qualitative data from n = 27 countries/states was received and analyzed to assess implementation of the Tokyo Convention throughout the region. The research design illustrates how normative instruments such as the Tokyo Convention are monitored and assessed over time.

A multi-stakeholder approach based on collaborative governance is needed to effectively monitor implementation and implications of the Tokyo Convention for diverse higher education stakeholders in the Asia-Pacific region.

Implications include establishing baseline data and methods for monitoring implementation of the Tokyo Convention. Based on collaborative governance theory, the paper explores potential for a multi-stakeholder approach to promote mutual accountability in the Asia-Pacific and to develop mechanisms for inclusive participation in the governance of the forthcoming Global Convention on recognition.

As the first systematic review of its kind, this paper includes a unique dataset and insights into UNESCO's methodology to monitor implementation of standard-setting instruments for qualifications recognition in the Asia-Pacific.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between global cities and international tourism with particular reference to the recent experiences of Tokyo which has recently seen a marked increase in arrivals. It addresses questions of the standing of Tokyo as a global city and tourist destination, how the two functions are connected and why changes are occurring.

The methodology employed is that of an empirical case study based on the analysis of published materials drawn from a diversity of sources.

The defining characteristics of global cities are generally conducive to their function as international tourist destinations. They possess a wealth of tourism resources and amenities which facilitate inbound tourist flows. Tokyo is a prominent example of a global city, but has tended to attract fewer visitors than others in that category. The recent significant growth in arrivals is attributed to changes in the tourism industry and wider environment, yet some challenges remain before it can catch up with its counterparts.

Fresh insights are afforded into the implications of global city status for tourism and the development of Tokyo as a destination which tends to have been neglected in the literature.

This paper aims to understand how the sustainability theme has been incorporated into the new Olympic planning guidelines based on analysing the case of Tokyo (2020), which was severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

For this, field research using the case study method was carried out that involved 21 in-depth interviews with experts from different entities affected by the event.

As a result, it was possible to identify that some characteristics already presented in the Tokyo project came to break away from the gigantism observed in the past Olympic editions in an attempt to demonstrate alignment with the new principles brought by the IOC (2020) and 2020 + 5 Agenda that had as one of its main objectives to simplify the Olympics, making the event more sustainable and accessible for future host societies.

At the end, some trends for the future of the Olympic Games are also presented in order to guide future studies in the area, as well as help the future host cities and their companies in planning their investments.

The emergence of purely “street‐born” fashion styles in the 1990s in the young women’s casual wear market in Tokyo has revealed the limitations of the conventional framework of quick response (QR) approaches that have long been implemented by Japanese fashion houses. They were found to be incapable of responding to the need for fresh fashion designs in the extremely volatile and fast‐moving streets of Tokyo’s casual fashion scene. This, on the other hand, has initiated a Korean‐Japanese fashion connection, in which a large number of small fashion firms in the Dongdaemun fashion industry district in Seoul play an important role in the taking‐shape of the pronto moda (fast fashion) in Tokyo style, with their organic networking of small suppliers within the agglomeration. The linkage of fashion industries between Seoul and Tokyo has also been fostering an interactive partnership in that both parties learn the uniqueness of each other’s practices. On the basis of a review of industrial agglomeration theories, highlights the relationships between the casual fashion trends in Tokyo in the 1990s and the pronto moda formula in the fashion agglomeration in the Dongdaemun district. In addition to this, an analysis of the future implication of the Korean‐Japanese fashion connection in the context of the global fashion industry is projected.

This paper aims to identify relevant innovations in Tokyo’s spatial articulation of infrastructure, building and public space, intertwining large-scale networks with local scale urban fabrics, to inform urban management towards sustainable urban transitions.

The research used a methodological combination of literature review, relevant case identification and analysis, on-site survey and photography, morphological interpretation through cartographic analysis and urban space and architectural redrawing and discussion under the conceptual framework.

Under Japan’s cultural construct, public/private thresholds are blurred and layered, defining a public space network which includes not only large-scale urban objects, such as railroad and commercial hubs but also small scale, hybrid and rather aweless forms of urban space, which can be of interest to the challenges of sustainable urban transition.

Adaptations in urban management and design need to consider the multi-scalar embeddedness of urban networks in local fabrics, considering public space structure and socio-cultural specificities. Limitations to growth-oriented rationale require increasingly decentralized networks and more hybrid spatial configurations in buildings, infrastructures and public space.

Tokyo represents an example of how a network-dependent metropolis, accommodates highly adaptive, inconspicuous and decentralized forms of basic service provision with an impact on the perception, use and management of public space. The main argument lies in the potential that these spatial arrangements hold as references for contemporary urban management and design in what pertains to societal challenges, low-carbon transition and network optimization.

Office markets and particularly international financial centres over the past decade have experienced rapid financialisation, developments and indeed changes in the post-global financial crisis (GFC) landscape. Importantly, the volume and types of international capital flows have witnessed more foreign actors and vehicles entering into the investment landscape with the concentration of investment intensifying within key financial centres. This paper examines the interaction of international real estate capital flows in the London, New York and Tokyo office markets between 2007 and 2017.

Using Real Capital Analytics (RCA) data comprising over 5,700 office property transactions equating to $563bn between 2007 and 2017, the direct global capital flows into the London, New York and Tokyo office markets are assessed using an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach. Further, Granger causality tests are examined to analyse the short-run interaction of international real estate capital flows into these three major office markets.

By assessing the relativity of internal to external investments in these three central business district (CBD) office markets, differences in market dynamics are highlighted. The London office market is shown to be highly dependent on international flows and the USA, the foremost source of cross-border investment on the global stage. The cointegration and causality analysis indicate that cross-border real estate investment flows in these markets (and financial centres) show both long- and short-run relationships and suggest that the London office market remains more distinct and the most reliant on international capital flows with a wider geographical spread of investment activities and investor types. In the case of New York and Tokyo, these markets appear to be driven by more domestic investment activity and capital seemingly due to subtle factors pertaining to investor home bias, risk aversion and diversification strategies between the markets in the aftermath of the GFC.

Given the importance of the CBD offices in London, New York and Tokyo as an asset class for institutional investors, this paper provides some insights as to their level of connection and the interaction of the international capital flows into these three major cities.

This paper aims to shed light on current initiatives of urban regeneration around the Shibuya Station area within the context of contemporary Tokyo’s place development strategies. The objectives are twofold: to illustrate the characteristics of the plans and the planning approaches framing the interventions; and to identify the strategies employed to reshape the cityscape.

Using a case study approach, this paper combines data from historical and archival research, as well as policy documents and plans. These are supplemented by data from extensive fieldwork undertaken between 2015 and 2019 to critically assess and interpret the implemented policies and the outcomes of the regeneration.

The paper provides insight into the ongoing urban regeneration around the Shibuya Station area and identifies five key themes that summarise the strategies employed to transform the urban landscape in the area. Despite the apparent success and some innovations introduced by the redevelopment project, critical issues remain–especially around the privatisation of public space and the lack of a holistic approach to sustainability.

The paper examines a significant and timely case of urban regeneration. By critically discussing the implications of the redevelopment around Shibuya Station in the context of Tokyo’s current place development strategies, the study highlights the importance of an inclusive notion of sustainable development and contributes to the debate around Japanese urbanism and urban regeneration.