Atom City Plans Big World Tourist Drive

Northern Advocate, 29 October 1949, Page 8

Atom City Plans Big World Tourist Drive

(By Warren White, NZPA Reuters Correspondent) TOKIO (By Airmail).-—Atom-bombed Hiroshima has started a world-wide tourist campaign to get part of the vast sum required to rebuild the city and to show people the horrors of atomic war. Hiroshima businessmen and city officials wait for the signing of a peace treaty as they expect a How of world travellers whose spendings will swell the city’s coffers.

Thousands of temporary bamboo and mud houses cover the atomic scar and there is little evidence of atomic bombing in Hiroshima today. A Japanese businessman said: “People all over the world will want to see the atom city whether there is anything to see or not. The only thing that can kill Hiroshima’s atom-tourist potential is the dropping of more atom bombs on other world cities. GUIDE PUBLISHED

tary film is being made. American occupation authorities have lent early pictures taken by them of the bombed city. Reviewing Hiroshima’s progress, Mayor chuckled iver a prediction four years earlier that his city would be “a desert for 70 years.” He predicted that, if an appeal to the Japanese Government for a twothirds subsidy is successful, and if tourist plans work out as hoped, Hiroshima will be tl;e most modern and best-planned city in Japan before 1970. Already, Hiroshima's main business centre, Hondori, hps, according to Mayor Hamai, regained its former prosperous look. , THRIVING TRADE Old shops have reopened though their keepers have changed. Selling atom curios is perhaps one of the most thriving shopping ventures in Hiroshima today. Popular souvenirs sold by most atom curio shops are glass bottles which crumbled under their own weight in the midst of the bomb’s heat. Many occupation troops visiting Hiroshima have expressed wonderment at the never-ending supply of such curios.

The Hiroshima City Council in a re-cently-published “Visitors’ Guide to the Atom City,” said: “We have discovered a totally new tourist trade from among the very ruins of the city for what could be' a better tourist attraction than the relics of the atomic bombing? "These relics should 7 be of interest to pleasure-seekers, scientists and champions of peace alike as they are authentic and vivid illustrations of the terrible implications of the atomic bomb, to say nothing of their value as constant reminders to all mankind of the undesirability and futility of war, and they are the source of our lasting prayer for universal peace.” CAMPAIGN LEADER The tourist campaign is in the hands of the “Hiroshima Peace Society,” headed by lively, energetic Mayor Shinzo Hamai, 44-year-old lawyer, who coined the phrase “No More Hiroshimas.”

Mayor Hamai considered there were additional attractions to bring world tourists to Hiroshima. He pointed out that Japan's “Inland Sea” was before the war the mecca of Japanese tourists. “Not far away,” said Mayor Harnai, “is Miyajima (one of the hundreds of tiny islands in the inland sea) where the sacred deer roam. “There we have a vermillion-lac-quered temple, with camphor-wood corridors, standing majestically in the tides of the inland sea. We offer the tourist cherry blossoms in spring and crimson-tinted maple leaves in autumn and at night, when the pathways are lit with lanterns, Miyajima takes on the appearance of a dragon palace or a dream island.”

Mayor Hamai claims the atom-bomb blew his house from round him, leaving him sitting on matting eating his morning rice*

When, he first introduced plans for rebuilding Hiroshima as a modern city dedicated to the cause of peace many of his colleagues fought the plan bitterly, claiming the atomic scar should be left for tourists to view. Mayor Hamai compromised by agreeing t<^leave certain atom bomb landmarks uncleared and build a huge museum for other relics. START IN U.S.

A Japanese Government railways pamphlet issued for English-speaking tourists visiting Hiroshima, describes Hiroshima Castle, former Imperial Headquarters, where nothing remains but the foundation stones among the grass and reeds.

Mayor Hamai plans to step-up atom publicity first in the United States. When there is more accommodation in Hiroshima he hopes the campaign will be extended through such agencies as “Peace Day Committees” to European, Asian, and Pacific countries.' The immediate cost of rebuilding Hiroshima is estimated at 30,000.000,000 yen (approximately £30,o00,000). As part of the initial publicity drive a documen-