Japan, tourist world tours and globetrotters
- i-comcul
- Jun 4
- 4 min read
from the Meiji period (1868-1912) to 1970
International conference co-organized by Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture, The University of Osaka, University of Geneva Geography Department, University of Turin Department of Humanities
Sophia University, Tokyo, 26-28 June 2026
The first round-the-world tourists, or “globetrotters”，appeared at the end of the 1860s, in connection with the completion of global transport networks. In 1872, Thomas Cook organized the first package world tours. By 1909, New York tour operator Clark offered the first round-the-world cruise. While at an initial stage round-the-would tourism was only accessible to a wealthy élite, tools for armchair globetrotting, such as stereoscopic photography, acquired growing popularity in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, with the explosion of a “globetrotting craze”. After World War II, in 1947, Pan Am finally launched the first commercial round-the-world flight service. In the 1970s, the democratization of air travel enabled some young people to backpack around the world.
This conference explores Japan’s role in this tourist trend, across one century. Ever since the beginnings of globetrotting, Japan was considered as one of the highlights of the experience. It was also the first country in Asia to offer its own package tours around the world, and one of the places where the “globetrotting craze” was embraced more enthusiastically, as Japanese governments actively and innovatively employed tourism campaigns as tools for nation branding. Over three days, presenters will discuss these topics, with papers focusing on tourist encounters and experiences, the tourist gaze and mutual representations, virtual globetrotting in and about Japan, and the evolution of Japanese tourist infrastructure.
This conference is one of the outcomes of the research project " Making the World - The first round the world tourist tours (1869-1914)"(funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation – SNSF) It is organized in collaboration by Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture, The University of Osaka, University of Geneva Geography Department, University of Turin Department of Humanities.
Please register: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/yRYrLMT2Rs
PROGRAMME
Venue: Room 301, Building 10, Sophia University (All three days)
June 26,2026 (Friday)
17:45-18:15 Registration
18:20-18:30 Welcome remarks (MURAI Noriko, Sophia University, Member of the research group “Making the World - The first round the world tourist tours (1869-1914)”)
18:30-19:30 Keynote speech 1 (Sonia FAVI, University of Turin, Member of the research group “Making the World - The first round the world tourist tours (1869-1914)”), Picturing tourist world tours in Japan – guidebooks, maps and sugoroku, 1880s-1930s.
June 27, 2026 (Saturday)
9:00-10:30 SESSION 1 – Moderator: MURAI Noriko (Sophia University)
Jason Gordon BUTTERS (Columbia University), Anxious to Impress: The impact of globetrotters on (inter)nationalist thought and praxis in imperial Japan, 1880s-1920s.
Jean-François STASZAK (University of Geneva), Globetrotting in Japan (1909-1913).
Andreas EICHLETER (Heidelberg University), Foreign Residents in Japan and their Impression of the Visiting Globetrotter.
10:30-11:00 Break
11:00-12:30 SESSION 2 – Moderator: MURAI Noriko (Sophia University)
Laura SAYSANAVONGPHET (University of Geneva), Japan as the Highlight of the World Tour: Tourist Practices, Encounters, and Imaginaries in Early Globetrotting (1869–1914).
William FAVRE (University of Geneva), Inverting the gaze: the SS Cleveland cruises around the world in the Japanese press.
KŌ En (Komazawa University), Japan’s Imperial Showcase on the World Tour: Manchuria, Round-the-World Cruises, and Global Representation in the 1920s.
12:30-14:00 Lunch
14:00-15:30 SESSION 3 – Moderator: Hannah HOLTZMAN (Sophia University)
Vanessa SCHWARTZ (University of Southern California), Hiro: Fashion Photographer as Globetrotter.
Claire-Akiko BRISSET (University of Geneva), Japanese globetrotters and avant-garde cinema in the 1920s.
Kevin RIORDAN (Temple University), Calendar Confusion in Meiji Japan: Jules Verne, Thomas Cook, and Kume Kunitake.
15:30-16:00 Break
16:00-17:30 SESSION 4 – Moderator: Sonia FAVI (University of Turin)
Andrew ELLIOTT (Doshisha Women’s College), Guiding the Globetrotter in Imperial Japan.
Bettina ZORN (Weltmuseum Wien), Heinrich von Siebold as tourist guide for the Austrian-Hungarian nobility at the end of the 19th century.
HU Kouzi (University of Tokyo), Bodily Practices and Affective Encounters: The Japanese Inn Experience in Globetrotters’ Accounts, 1860–1920.
17:30-18:00 Break
18:00-19:00 Keynote speech 2 (HASHIMOTO Yorimitsu, The University of Osaka, Member of the research group “Making the World - The first round the world tourist tours (1869-1914)”). Globetrottering as Duty: From Imperial Education to Postwar Ethical Critique, Japan's Transforming Rites of Elite Travel, 1910s–1960s.
June 28, 2026 (Sunday)
9:30-11:00 SESSION 5 – Moderator: MURAI Noriko (Sophia University)
WAKABAYASHI Haruko (Rutgers University), From Oyatoi to a Globe-TroPer: Edward Warren Clark’s World Tours in the Midst of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895.
Véronique BRINDEAU (Sophia University), A traveling salesman turned art collector: a French globetrotter in Japan, Georges Labit (1862–1899).
Laurence WILLIAMS (Sophia University), Elite Globetrotters and the Critique of Mass Tourism: Rudyard Kipling and Aldous Huxley in Japan.
11:00-11:30 Break
11:30-13:00 SESSION 6 – Moderator: Jean-François STASZAK (University of Geneva)
Karolina WATROBA (University of Edinburgh), Touring the World via Japan: Three German ‘Weltreisen’ of 1929.
Philip DECKER (Princeton University), “The New Asia”: Colin Ross’ 1939 journey to Japan and the Japanese Empire, and what he told Adolf Hitler about it.
António Eduardo HAWTHORNE BARRENTO (University of Lisbon), Not as in the books: Ferreira de Castro’s Around the World and his observations of Japan in 1939.
13:00-14:30 Lunch
14:30-16:00 SESSION 7 – Moderator: KONO Shion (Sophia University)
Érika WICKY (University Grenoble Alpes), Scents of Japan: Olfactory accounts of world travelers (1870-1912).
Maria EMANOVSKAYA (Sciences Po Paris), Russian Globetrotting and Japan: a Story of Construction of Alterity through Food.
DONG Zi’ang (Hokkaido University), Landscapes in Exile: Postwar Japan in Chiang Yee’s The Silent Traveller.
16:00-16:30 Break
16:30-17:30 SESSION 8 – Moderator: HASHIMOTO Yorimitsu (The University of Osaka)
YAJIMA Masumi (Tohoku University), Japan for the Global Traveler: Ponting’s Stereographs and the Rise of Armchair Tourism.
Raphaël PIERONI (Institute for Research in Art and Design – HEAD Geneva and University of Geneva), Around the World in One Day in Japan. Tobu World Square (1993) and Small Worlds Miniature Museum (2020).
17:30 Closing remarks
Organizers: Sonia FAVI (University of Turin); HASHIMOTO Yorimitsu (The University of Osaka); MURAI Noriko (Sophia University); Jean-François STASZAK (University of Geneva)
