According to Jamaica’s Director of Tourism Paul Pennicook, the twinning of the island’s town of Westmoreland with Tottori, a town in Japan, is likely to encourage more Japanese tourists to visit Jamaica. Pennicook said that the Japanese tourist market is a priority, and when he visited Tokyo in May 2016, he met with several travel partners and airline firms to develop packages designed to make vacations in Jamaica more accessible and attractive to the Japanese. Pennicook made his remarks at a reception to welcome Shinji Hirai, the Governor of Tottori Prefecture, and his delegation in Negril on July 17, 2016. In [particular, the Minister noted that there are no direct flights between the two nations, but there are good connecting flights, allowing a visitor to travel from Japan to Jamaica in a single day. Over 23,000 Japanese tourists visited Jamaica each year in the late 1990s, but that number has fallen to just over 2,000 per year at present. Pennicook is focusing on recovering that lost market share for Jamaica.

Tottori is home to a range of natural wonders like the sand dunes of Sanin Kaigan Geopark, national heritage sites Misasa Onsen and Mt. Mitoku, and the towering Mt. Daisen, as well as Japanese pop culture icons like the mangas GeGeGe no Kitaro and Case Closed (Detective Conan).