The Japanese government has announced a national policy of “increasing of the number of foreign tourists visiting Japan annually to 20 million people by 2020.” Foreign tourists have multiple reasons for visiting Japan. Therefore, this study focuses on “Sport-related Tourism,” and especially investigated sport tourism in important regional cities.

Several larger cities have already established associations to promote sport-related tourism, and have started advertising or holding world-class tournaments. Examples include the 2019 Rugby World Cup, and 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics. However, other regional cities have not yet started their foreign tourist promotions. The main finding of this study indicates that the most importance thing is to establish a sport commission which will encourage and support tourists who are also interested in sport, to cooperate with neighboring communities, and to position several larger cities as a hub for “Sport-related Tourism” as soon as possible.