Kobe City Government in Hyogo prefecture is now constructing a roadside station for marketing “Kobe brand goods” such as local farm products, Japanese sake (wine) and local wine to international tourists who have been tremendously increasing in recent years.
Multi-language information service will be provided to those tourists through its website as well as a concierge office to be set up at the station. The City Government aims to increase visitors to various kinds of tourist farms in the city.
The roadside station is expected to play an important role of a new base for enhancing agricultural production in the city through inviting more international and domestic tourists to visit the station.
As a part of a reconstruction plan of “Kobe Fruit Flower Park,” a kind of theme park attached with pick-your-own farms and amusement facilities, the Kobe City Government is constructing a “tax-free direct sales outlet” and an information service office for inbound tourism.
The parking lot is to be expanded for tourist buses. The “tax-free outlet” and other facilities will open in March 2017 as a new roadside station in the Kobe Park.
According to a spokesperson of the Kobe local government, guests of the park-attached hotel particularly from China and Taiwan have been remarkably increasing during these years.