【Third Round】What will travel look like five years from now? We ask former Miss Universe Japan finalist Ms. Miku Takahashi.

The New Buds of Tourism, Exploring the Shape and Future of Tourism Five Years Ahead

This column aims to pinpoint new buds of tourism (the latest trends and changes in traveling) that are to come. However, the column isn’t limited to just the travel industry, but feature people an interview format from a variety of industries.
Our guest this time is a former Miss Japan finalist. She’s currently guiding the next generation of contestants, while involved with planning beauty and health regimens based off DNA analysis. She formed an import company with her sibling and is many-sided in a variety of projects. Today, we talk to her about her thoughts.

Ms. Miku Takahashi

　
Graduated from the College of Tourism at Rikkyo University. She first heard about beauty pageants when she was in high school and challenged herself to them after she started working at a company following graduation from university. In 2016, she became the representative for Kanagawa Prefecture. After that, she wore two hats, one working at a company and the other working as instructor for beauty pageant contestants. She left her job at the company in 2018, and started up her own business that deals with DNA and gut flora. Currently, she’s working in the previously mentioned capacity and established BLANK LABEL LLC with her younger brother, which is an import business.

Facing myself through the challenge of Miss Universe

　
Interviewer: Miss Universe isn’t just about physical beauty, but also about knowledge, ability to express oneself and the ability to charm audiences with one’s character. It places an important on inner qualities where contributions to society, interests and other contributions to local regions are also valued and judged. What was the catalyst that caused you to try for Miss Universe, Ms. Takahashi?
　
Ms. Takahashi: I was in my first year of high school when I decided that I would challenge myself to become a Miss Universe contestant. Thanks to my mother, I developed an interest in other countries and due to my straight-forward personality, I found the Japanese value of “falling in line with others” made me feel it was a hard place to live. So, I advanced my education to a high school that focused on international studies, where I could study English and another language on a deeper level. When my mother told me that Miss Japan won the Miss Universe on the world stage, I told myself, “I’m definitely going to do this!” It was a thought I kept to myself all those years. I was quite involved and absorbed in lacrosse when I was a student, so I only applied after I started working.
　
Interviewer: What did you realize and what did you feel when you challenged yourself to become a Miss Universe contestant?
　
Ms. Takahashi: People have an image in their minds that beauty pageants are contests to see who’s the most beautiful, but when you get to the international stage, it’s like a microcosm of the world. You can easily see how the world is when you realize participants from economically developed countries are in a better position because they can use money to be more competitive. Beauty pageants are also a business in Japan too, so it becomes obvious how money moves around in these. So, the pageants don’t simply make you more beautiful but they’re great opportunities to learn more about the world.
　
Interviewer: After you finished your stint in beauty pageants, you started working in nutritional sciences based off DNA analysis, right? What made you focus your career on nutritional sciences?
　
Ms. Takahashi: There’s a lot of information about health and beauty regiments out there in the world, but I believe some worked for me, and some didn’t. I did a lot of training and trying things out to compete for Miss Universe for two years. There, I found certain regimens worked well and I was glad I tried them out, but on the other hand, I found many other regimens didn’t work that well despite what everyone else was saying. I started to wonder, “Why do certain regimens work for some people and don’t for others?” I heard that DNA plays a big role in this and that’s when I was convinced to start this.
One of the things I thought was great when I started learning nutritional science was that your diet and the foods you eat will affect your body negatively or positively even if your environment changes or if you go abroad. Traveling is fun, but it’s tiring and if the environment isn’t right, you might not be able to fully enjoy it. As a result of learning nutritional sciences, I am now able to enjoy my time 100% when I travel so I’m glad I started studying it.

　

“Spending time like the locals, experiencing the true and authentic destination.”

　
Interviewer: You said that you started becoming interested in foreign countries due to your mother’s influence, what do you usually set as a goal when you travel?
　
Ms. Takahashi: When I go somewhere else that isn’t like Japan, it’s important for me to experience the lifestyles of people in that country. I love staying at nice hotels, but if I had to choose, I would choose more local options that would allow me to experience and feel the lives of the people that live there.
　
Interviewer: Why is experiencing and feeling the lifestyles of the local people important to you?
　
Ms. Takahashi: I think the main reason these things are important to me is because I don’t want people to thing I’m a silly tourist (laughs). I had that thought when I did the beauty pageants, I also had that thought when I did a homestay in Spain when I was in high school. Japanese people, when they leave Japan, they’re still Japanese no matter how hard they try. They might seem like they’re easy targets, lugging around large suitcases – ripe for pickpockets. So, in order to not seem like an easy target, I thought I should start with truly acclimating myself with the locals and the local environment.
And I personally enjoy experiencing and understanding foreign cultures, so I try to assimilate as much as possible, and I get very excited to visit local joints the local people visit. While I enjoy major tourist attractions too, I very much enjoy going to places other people aren’t aware of, where you wonder if it’s okay to even enter the place. There’s such value in going to one of those places and enjoy the food.

　

What’s important is getting to know oneself better

　
Interviewer: Ms. Takahashi, you’re married and now have a family – is there a change in the way you travel in comparison to when you were single?
　
Ms. Takahashi: I’ll say what hasn’t changed: I don’t travel without a specific goal or purpose in mind. In the end, I mainly think about what I want to experience, but I’ll say that certain values changed when I became a parent. When I first traveled overseas with my daughter, I thought to myself, “What will she think about this?” “What experiences should I give her?” We may have the same experience and I may personally think it’s very fun but if the other person doesn’t find it so much fun, then they’ll just suffer. That’s not going to make it a good memory. I’ve started to think about how others perceive and feel the same experiences.
　
Interviewer: It’s lovely to hear the knowledge and memories you’ve received from your mother has been passed down to your daughter. Have you felt there’s been a change of travel styles from the people around you?
　
Ms. Takahashi: I think there’s been an increase of private tours overseas that are catered to that person specifically, usually done by an individual or a very small company. In the future, I think Japanese people will start to use those services, essentially high-net worth individuals will start to travel like that.
　
Interviewer: We feel that creating customized travel plans for people is very similar to creating beauty and health regiments based off DNA analysis. Ms. Takahashi, what areas do you place an importance on when creating these plans?
　
Ms. Takahashi: It doesn’t necessarily have to be order-made but it should have some level of personalization. When you’re working in this field, suggesting that it’s good for everyone has less of an effect than saying, “this is good for you.” However, what’s important when communicating with your client is you have to give them more than they expected or wanted. I believe when there’s too much information, clients may stop thinking about things. Since I have the knowledge about these regimens, I want to tell clients, “you should do this, you should do that,” but I’m very conscious of what exactly the client wants and give only relevant information as a result.
　
Interviewer: The travel industry also has to deal with too much information as well. In this industry, there’s a lot of information and there’s a lot of instances where a fixed quantity of data like DNA doesn’t get used to its full potential so I feel like providing personalized information hasn’t come along quite as much as I’d expected.
　
Ms. Takahashi: This is true for DNA, but there might be a lot of people out there who don’t understand me. When I’m working as a teacher for beauty pageants, I ask my students, “What do you like?” “What do you dislike?” “What makes you excited?” many of them seemingly can’t answer me.
　
When it comes to traveling, I know I prefer to travel and enjoy the local sights rather than be on a fixed schedule on a tour, so I’ll choose the former, but if you don’t know what you like, you’ll never choose staying at private lodging. If you’re motivated by what’s popular so you want to go or if your friends went, it was good and now you want to go, I think these are all good motivators too. But you should know yourself first and be conscious of what your goals are and what you want when you travel. You can decide where you want to go, whether if you want to go on a tour, and if you want to take care of all the details and arrangements yourself. I believe doing so will increase how satisfied you are with that trip.

The Buds We Found in This Exploration

The “bud” we found and learned in this exploration consisted of knowing yourself to fully enjoy the trip you’re on. You might assume you know yourself the best, but it turns you might not…. There might be a lot of people like that out there.
With the advancement of AI technologies, providing personalized information as a service may increase in numbers in any industry. Before that becomes the norm, you should think and ask yourself what is it that you truly like and what is it that you want. By doing so, you might find a new way of living and a new way to travel and explore the world.（BCN）