Vail reignites relationship with Japanese sister resort as it welcomes delegation of 10

This week, the town of Vail is hosting 10 representatives from Yamanouchi Machi, Nagano, Japan, reigniting a global friendship exchange that took a backseat during the pandemic.

“I’m really looking forward to making a new relationship with Vail and I think we have a lot of things we can exchange,” said Yamanouchi Mayor Gaku Hirasawa at the Vail Town Council meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 17.

Hirasawa is a former alpine skier, representing Japan at the Lillehammer Olympics in 1994 and the Nagano Olympics in 1998. On Tuesday, he noted that his last giant slalom race was in Beaver Creek. He was elected as Yamanouchi’s mayor seven months ago.

The town of Yamanouchi is located two and a half hours north from Tokyo, and is home to just over 11,000 people. The town is primarily forest — around 88% — and nearly the whole town sits within the UNESCO Shiga-highland Biosphere Reserve. The town is also home to two ski resorts — Shiga Kogen, which has 18 areas and 49 lifts and gondolas, and Kita-shiga Kogen, which has four areas, 24 lifts and a ropeway.

According to Hirasawa, its tourist economy also consists of hot springs, spas, an infamous snow monkey park — where you can see the “rare” sight of the monkeys “taking baths in the hot springs” — and more. Each year, these activities draw over 3 million visitors.

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The visit officially kicked off at Tuesday night’s Town Council meeting, with a presentation from Hirasawa about Yamanouchi and an official proclamation from Vail “recognizing and relaunching” the official relationship between the two municipalities. From there, the group went to a reception at Deca + Bol where town staff and council members as well as various community leaders and stakeholders welcomed the delegation to Vail.

Through the week, the delegation from Japan will have an opportunity to see much of Vail — getting a tour of Dobson Ice Arena, Vail Mountain, Ford Park, Betty Ford Alpine Gardens, Vail Ski and Snowboard Club, and more, as well as enjoying numerous town restaurants and activities.

Additionally, the trip was intentionally planned to collide with Mountain Towns 2030, a climate solutions summit bringing representatives from over 40 mountain communities to Vail, which several members of the Japanese delegation were able to attend.  

In addition to its relationship with Yamanouchi, Vail has formalized its peer relationships with St. Anton Am Arlberg in Austria and St. Moritz in Switzerland. As the town revives these relationships post-pandemic, it welcomed a delegation from St. Anton this summer.

At that time, Mia Vlaar, the town’s economic development director, emphasized that the goal of these relationships is to share and learn from other mountain resort communities.

In its official proclamation with Yamanouchi, the partner communities have identified multiple topics on which they can share ideas, innovation and technology. These topics include year-round economic development and tourism, environmental sustainability, climate change mitigation and adaptation, public health and safety, cultural heritage protection, workforce housing, and transportation systems. 

A delegation from the town of Vail visited the city of Yamanouchi and the Nagano Prefecture in 2018. Council member Jen Mason was one of the members on that trip and said that she most wants to learn from their relationship with the environment.

“When we went on exchange, the thing I picked up the most is how they co-exist with the natural world around them,” Mason said. “It just seems like it blends in a little bit more, there’s not such a stark divide between the natural world and development. I’m hoping we can learn a little bit from that.”

Hirasawa also addressed this relationship, saying that the town is “trying to make a living keeping nature and keeping a sustainable business in the same place.”

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For Hirasawa, looking forward, he’s most excited to establish exchange programs — both for students and adults.

“Japan is a small island country, and we need to raise international kids, which means we need kids to study English, at least,” he said, adding that this is a primary goal of his in the next few years. “They can go out, work outside (of Japan), see all over the world and come back to our town and help our town.”

“I think we have a lot of things we can learn from Vail and I would like to accelerate the relationship from this year,” Hirasawa concluded.