Yonezawa City Audit Committee Finds Contribution Payments to City's Local DMO as Conflict of Interest

On January 12, 2024, the audit committee of Yonezawa City, Yamagata Prefecture, announced the results of an audit that found that the 76 million yen contribution paid by the city to the Yonezawa Tourism Promotion Organization, a DMO organization, would be a loss to the city.

The audit was conducted in November 2023 at the request of a citizen, and was conducted in the name of former Mayor Nakagawa (who retired in December last year), who also served as the representative of both Yonezawa City and the Tourism Promotion Organization at the time of Yonezawa City's payment of contributions to the Yonezawa Tourism Promotion Organization for FY2023. The audit found this to be a conflict of interest.

Yonezawa City paid a total of 131 million yen to the Yonezawa Tourism Promotion Organization, 55 million yen in FY2022 and 76 million yen in FY2023. In the audit, it was determined that the fiscal 2023 amount constitutes a violation of the Civil Code. The 2022 payment was not subject to the audit because more than one year had passed at the time of the citizen's request for audit. The official who interviewed him said, "If it was in the name of the mayor and the vice president of the organization, or the deputy mayor and the president of the organization, it would not have been a violation, but there was a clerical error this time."

Currently, the chairman of the Yonezawa Tourism Promotion Organization is Mayor Kondo. The audit committee asked the mayor to return the 76 million yen in the violation fine to the Yonezawa Tourism Promotion Organization. Or a way to solve the problem in a way that does not violate the law is being sought.

Yonezawa Tourism Promotion Organization is a tourism regional development organization (DMO) established in April 2022. DMOs, which are not well known to the general public, started the Japan Tourism Agency's registration system in 2015 as an organization to promote the management of tourist destinations. Initially, it was expected to be an organization that earns its own money, but recently it has been pointed out that it is dependent on the administrative budget. Japan Tourism Agency according to 282 DMOs have been established nationwide (as of September 2023) It has been.