抄録

　釜石市に限らず,全国的にみて,雇用の面から地域経済の活性化を考えるとき,第2次産業の動向以上に大きな意味をもつのは,第3次産業の動向である.本稿の課題は,第3次産業に立脚した地域経済活性化の道筋を,岩手県釜石市の事例に即して明らかにすることにある.本稿での分析結果は,以下の2点にまとめることができる.第1は,外部からの需要の呼び込みこそが,釜石市の第3次産業活性化の起点となることである.現在の人口や来街者数のままでは,釜石市の商店街に活気を呼びもどし,閉じたシャッターを再び開けさせることは困難である.通行する住民や観光客の数が増えてはじめて,小売店や飲食店は活気づく.既存の内需に依存する形で釜石市の第3次産業活性化を図ることには限界があるのであり,活性化への第一歩は,外需の喚起によって踏み出されることを銘記すべきである.第2は,釜石ブランドを,近隣市町村と連携した広域ブランドと,適切に組み合わせることである.外部需要を喚起するためには地域ブランドを確立する必要があるが,そのためには,釜石ブランドを,三陸ブランドや銀河ドリームラインブランドとカップリングした方が,釜石市の経済活性化にとって,効果が大きい.釜石市の魅力は,三陸海岸の魅力を語ることによって,あるいは銀河ドリームラインの魅力を語ることによって,拡大する.そのうえで,「水産物がおいしいまち」,「グリーンツーリズムがさかんなまち」としての独自イメージを鮮明にすることができれば,釜石市を訪れる観光客は急増するであろう.

abstract

Some 60% of workers in Kamaishi City belonged to the tertiary industries as of 2004. Therefore, the revitalization of the tertiary industries holds a significant meaning for the revitalization of the economy of Kamaishi City as a whole. In this article, I advance the argument for the revitalization of the economy of Kamaishi City based on the tertiary industries. In order for the shopping district of Kamaishi City to regain prosperity and to revitalize the city's center, it is necessary to increase the number of visitors to the city. There currently exist three ways to increase the number of city visitors: (1) increase the self-reliance of the shopping district, (2) increase the population of city residents, and (3) increase the number of tourists and other visitors to the city. Of these three, the first is a necessary precondition for restoring the vitality of the shopping district, but its results are limited. Although (2) includes measures such as calling back former Kamaishi workers who have spread out across the country, and therefore holds future possibilities, when the decrease in birthrate is taken into consideration, it is hard to expect any large results. Therefore, we can conclude that method (3), increasing tourism and other external visitors, holds the most promise for increasing the number of visitors to the city. In order to draw more tourists to Kamaishi City, it will be important to propagate the image of Kamaishi as "Kamaishi of the Sanriku Coast" as well as the image of Kamaishi as "Kamaishi of the Galaxy Dream Line." At the same time, I maintained that it is important to promulgate the message that Kamaishi is a place of delicious seafood, as well as a popular spot for ecotourism. As is the case with the Kamaishi Regional Wind Farm, in Kamaishi City there are a number of tourism resources which have yet to be mobilized to their full potential. If they were to be fully mobilized, I anticipate that the number of tourists visiting Kamaishi would increase, increasing the number of visitors to the shopping districts in the city, and revitalizing the center of the city. I think that a revitalization of Kamaishi City's economy based on the tertiary industries would take this kind of path.