Abstract
The development and uptake of information and communication technologies have provided tourism industries innovative opportunities to interact with potential tourists. Instead of focusing on the development and implementation of new technological tools with which much E-tourism research is concerned, this paper examines a case of tourism promotion in Japan made possible by the spread of video-sharing websites. The case shows a nontraditional, non-intuitive strategy. It reaches potential tourists and gains nationwide visibility at a relatively low cost by producing videos featuring an unappealing character who symbolizes the destination: Hakodate City. This strategy of promoting domestic tourism was preceded by other two popular strategies of tourism promotion in Japan, and the case is compared with them: popular media-induced tourism, particularly anime tourism, and local mascots.