The tourism industry in Los Angeles, still rebounding from the pandemic, has gotten a rare gift in the form of Shohei Ohtani.
Since the baseball season started in March, Japanese fans have come by the thousands to L.A. despite a historically weak yen, in hopes of seeing the two-way star slug a home run.
The surge is apparent at the Miyako, a mid-sized, unassuming hotel in Little Tokyo that has become a top attraction for Japanese visitors because of its proximity to Dodger Stadium — just 2 miles away — and a 15-story, very ‘grammable mural of Ohtani covering one of its exterior walls.
Inside the Miyako, workers at the Okayama Kobo bakery in the lobby, sell Japanese-style pastries shaped like blue Dodger helmets while reporting that their Japanese is vastly improving from more Japanese guests coming through the door.
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One traveler from Osaka, Megu Adachi, was in the lobby last week checking in with several other friends. They had tickets to watch Ohtani play, or as Adachi fondly called him, yakyu shonen — a kid obsessed with baseball.
“Baseball only!” Adachi emphasized in English.
L.A.’s tourism industry eagerly welcomes international travelers for their tendency to stay longer and spend more than domestic visitors, said Adam Burke, president and CEO the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board.
With travel down from China, the biggest pre-pandemic source of overseas visitors to L.A., other countries such as Japan are proving to be increasingly important sources of tourism dollars.
Because of Ohtani's appeal — not to mention the Dodgers also signing of Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto — Japan this year may surpass visitor numbers for markets like the U.K. and Australia.
“We could be over 400,000 Japanese visitors," Burke said. "It would absolutely make it one of our top four international markets.”
Leading Japanese tour operator JTB alone plans to bring as many as 25,000 customers to watch Shohei play this season.
Osuke Ishiguro, who manages the agency’s L.A. office, said many customers are paying to see multiple games. Some of them are very casual baseball fans, but were stunned to see Ohtani secure his record-breaking $700 million, 10-year contract with a storied franchise.
“They found out he’s a superstar,” Ishiguro said. “So a lot of people want to just see the game, how he does and how he reacts.”
Shift to South Bay
When the Dodgers are playing at home, half of the Miyako's rooms are occupied by Japanese tourists, said general manager Akira Yuhara. Before Ohtani’s arrival, they had little reason to visit Little Tokyo, Yuhara said, noting some perceive downtown as dangerous.
“Especially this area, they don't want to come,” Yuhara said.
Though it is a cultural hub for Japanese Americans that's rooted in history, Little Tokyo is not widely known in Japan, Yuhara said.
Rather, the most famous L.A.-area attractions are Disneyland, Hollywood, Santa Monica and Universal Studios, home to the new Super Nintendo World co-designed by Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto.
Yuhara said Japanese businesspeople coming to work in L.A. typically end up staying in the South Bay, where SoCal’s Japanese American population center shifted after World War II.
It’s also where scores of Japanese companies like Honda and All Nippon Airways have located their U.S. operations, and where many of their employees live, eat, bank and shop.
Yuhara said a sister hotel he manages in Torrance has traditionally been more popular with Japanese travelers.
If they want a photographic souvenir of Ohtani, they need go no farther than neighboring Hermosa Beach, which has its own mural of the superstar.
But the pull of Ohtani has more travelers traveling up the 110 Freeway and squeezing in a stay downtown.
“Even when we don't have a game today, they go to Dodger Stadium,” Yuhara said. “They’re interested in Dodgers [merch] shopping.”
Fried octopus and chicken katsu
At the stadium, visitors can pick up Ohtani’s No. 17 jersey. Concession stands sell chicken katsu sandwiches and takoyaki (fried octopus.)
Signs in kanji characters dot the stadium, where tours are now given in Japanese several times a week.
The demand to see Ohtani has created unexpected new lines of business for companies such as Elite Sports Tours, which creates sports travel packages for customers.
Elite went from having "zero" bookings from Japan to, seemingly overnight, working with Japanese tour operators to secure tickets and advising on L.A. traffic, said CEO Tim Macdonell.
JTB manager Ishiguro said the gambling scandal involving Ohtani's ex-interpreter that exploded at the start of the season didn't seem to affect interest among Japanese travelers wanting to see Ohtani.
He expects even more Japanese fans will come during the summer and into the fall should Ohtani stay healthy, the Dodgers make the postseason and the yen recovers.
The agency is booking guests in and around Little Tokyo, shuttling them to and from the stadium and their hotels, Ishiguro said.
He said not since another Japanese superstar, Hideo Nomo, played for the Dodgers two decades ago have this many Japanese tourists regularly flocked to this part of town.
Yutaka Umezawa has noticed more people speaking Japanese on the street and at Daikokuya, the ramen shop where he works.
"I can hear that they're Japanese and usually they're talking about Ohtani," said Umezawa, who moved to L.A. eight years ago from Chiba.
Outside the Miyako hotel, Tadashi Onaka was visiting the Ohtani mural with his son Yusuke, who lives in Arizona. He had traveled from Japan with the intent of seeing his son, but made sure to take a detour to L.A. so he could watch Ohtani play at home.
“He hit a run in the first inning,” Onaka recalled. ”Just getting to see it was good.”
Now he found himself in Little Tokyo, a place he was surprised to learn has existed for 140 years.
Very small, he said, and very different from Japan, he said. Rather, it's its own thing that legions of Ohtani fans are now getting to discover.
