Shinjuku's Tourist Info Station Drawing Over 100 Thousand Visitors

Here's a valuable info for foreign tourists on a visit of Japan - perhaps this might help some of you currently touring Tokyo. Shinjuku Ward opened in December last year a tourist information station at Shinjuku station to help foreign visitors get around. By this month over 100 thousand foreigners have dropped in there for help. 

Shinjuku Tourist Information, as it is called, is staffed with operators proficient in 8 different foreign tongues to assist the foreign tourists. The station says an average of  600 foreigners drop in every day and a total of over 100 thousand of them have visited there in the five-month time since it opened last December.

Data show the visitors include those having lived in Japan for some time and also those who come repeatedly seeking tourist info. The visiting foreign tourists are diverse in nationality and their points of interests quite widespread, the station says.

The tourist info station stepped up its services last month by increasing the number of reception staff and also the tourist brochures by three times up to 300 items.
Deputy Director Yasuko Inukai comments:

"We are happily busy with a flood of foreign tourists visiting our station. We sincerely hope they have a good time visiting places in Tokyo and the rest of Japan."
An 8-member Phillipino family came one day to ask for info on where to watch people enjoying cosplay (or dressing in costume, esp. as a manga character, etc.) and buy anime character dolls as souvenirs for their friends, etc. A staff instantly looked up in the internet, screened out data on shops in Akihabara where they carry such items.

A French female tourist asked and obtained info on how to get to Tsukiji to watch the fish auction in action. One of the brochures shows how to visit a Sumo stable - a detailed schedule of training, etc. 

The station has it all on touring Japan. Why not visit there once?(Nathan Shiga) 

Source: NHK