Pop Japan

Mascot ambassadors has been a craze to boost the tourism in Japan. Kumamon was created in 2010, by the government of the Kumamoto Prefecture, to attract travelers to the Kyushu region when the shinkansen to the region has finally been opertional. Kumamon gradually rose to fame, being voted as the top tourism mascot in 2011. In fact, according to the Bank of Japan, the mascot has generated around 123.2 billion yen in revenue for the Kumamoto Prefecture. Kumamon has already made a name for itself and for Kumamoto so the government has now been screening the products who wanted to use Kumamon for advertising. But the Kumamoto government is not charging any copyright fee for this.

Photo by Nullumayulife. Licensed under Creative Commons. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

Tags: mascot, tourism, travel, japan, kumamon, kumamoto prefecture, bank of japan, copyright fee