The opportunities in the inbound medical tourism market are actually very compelling. We were approached by a B2B2C Systems Integration company that wants to get into the medical tourism market.

It was with some interest that we saw news on Friday that NHK has for the first time lost a law suit over its ability to enforce collection of its viewer fees.

A brief comment about the news that Japan's defense budget is surging to a record.

Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) numbers released at the end of July showed that foreign inbound travelers for June 2016 were up a surprising 23.9% over June 2015. What is driving the renewed surge in visits?

Japanese major tech firms are starting to use M&A as one way to acquire the necessary expertise. Last year Hitachi Data Systems bought a leading data integration, visualization and analytics company called Pentaho.

Looking after niche markets such as custom and adventure travelers, we are experiencing steadily rising demand. Better still, currently we have very little local competition in either sector.

The Nikkei is saying that the new package will have four pillars -- infrastructure development, financial support for small businesses, mobilization of underutilized human resources, and disaster prevention measures.

One of my favorite past times is creating ideas about how to help people travel Japan cheaply and yet reliably. The cheapest way to see Japan is to intern in our annual Japan Travel internship program.

Abe correctly said in 2013 that the economy needed to be turned around with three arrows. The third arrow, which was supposed to be deregulation and reform is in our opinion where he has failed.

If you want to capture the essence of Japanese spirit you also need arts with a dash of stoicism, nuanced values, and a direct connection to Buddhist or Shinto philosophy.