Akagi Visitor Center is completed and Snow Peak opens on the 19th under designated management Gunma Prefecture

A completion ceremony was held on the 16th for the Akagi Visitor Center (Snow Peak Land Station Akagi), a complex facility that Gunma Prefecture was developing at Akagi Prefectural Park (Maebashi City). It will open on the 19th. Snow Peak, which handles outdoor businesses, will be in charge of designated management. The company's president, Takafumi Mizuguchi, said, ``We want to make Akagi a gateway for visitors.''

The facility includes tourist information introducing the Akagi summit area, a 24-hour restroom, and coin-operated showers. It will also include a shop directly operated by the company that sells local products and other items, as well as an indoor cafe with 66 seats.

The prefecture is working to revitalize Akagi Park, and a camp field operated by the company as the designated manager opened at the end of April. The maintenance project cost for both locations will be approximately 3.7 billion yen. A portion of the profits generated by each facility will be returned to the prefecture.

According to the prefecture's Natural Environment Division, Akagi Park received more than 1 million visitors a year in the 1970s and 1980s, but the number has declined in recent years, and in 2017, the number of visitors was about 700,000. With the opening of both locations, we aim to increase the number of visitors by 100,000 per year.