A Comprehensive Analysis of the Appeal of “Crafts as Industry” – Regional Revitalization Through Manufacturing (Book)

The perspective of reconsidering traditional crafts not only as “culture” but also as “industry” is gaining renewed attention. Published by Chuo Koron-Sha in March 2025, “Crafts as Industry: Regional Revitalization Through Manufacturing” is a book that explores the value of crafts as regional resources and the potential for regional development that leverages them.

This article examines the present and future of crafts from multiple perspectives, including on-site craftspeople, local governments, and producers. In this article, we provide insights to deepen understanding of the relationship between crafts and regions while introducing the book’s overview and key highlights.

Checking the Book’s Overview and Basic Information

“Crafts as Industry: Regional Revitalization Through Manufacturing,” edited by the Development Bank of Japan and the Japan Research Institute, is a comprehensive volume that looks back at 160 years of craft development since the modern era while presenting concrete strategies for revitalizing traditional crafts as “regional industries.”

Published by Chuo Koron-Sha on March 24, 2025, this substantial 372-page A5-format volume offers comprehensive content suitable for a practical handbook.

Confirming Title, Publication Information, and Specifications

• Title: Crafts as Industry: Regional Revitalization Through Manufacturing
• Editors: Development Bank of Japan / Japan Research Institute
• Publisher: Chuo Koron-Sha
• Publication Date: March 24, 2025 (First Edition)
• Format: A5 size, 372 pages
• Price: 2,420 yen (including tax)

Source: “Crafts as Industry” | Chuko Koron-Sha

The Book’s Aim: “Viewing Crafts as Industry”

This book is a practical handbook that re-evaluates traditional crafts not as “cultural properties” but as “regional industries,” proposing sustainable profit-generating mechanisms. Starting from the current situation where traditional craft product shipments have shrunk from approximately 500 billion yen in the 1990s to less than 100 billion yen today, it analyzes case studies of businesses that have thrived since the 2000s.

The chapter structure consists of:

• Chapter 1: What are “Crafts”?
• Chapter 2: Modern Craft History as Industry
• Chapter 3: Craft Revival – The Craft Industry Since the 2000s
• Chapter 4: Crafts and Tourism
• Chapter 5: Reconsidering International Expansion of Crafts
• Chapter 6: The Future of Crafts

This six-chapter structure systematizes success factors and challenges from four perspectives: design, DX, sales channels, and policy.

Content Map Understanding Through Chapter Structure

The book organizes all six chapters into three blocks: “Foundation,” “Practice,” and “Outlook,” designed to enable step-by-step learning from the historical background essential for understanding crafts as industry to the latest business models and future proposals.

Below, we introduce the overview described in each chapter.

Chapters 1-2: Definition of Crafts and Industrial History from the Modern Era

The book first explores “what crafts are” from the establishment of terminology in the Meiji period, examining the designation system of the Traditional Crafts Industry Promotion Act (1974) and verifying through data the reality that shipment values have shrunk from approximately 500 billion yen in the 1990s to less than 100 billion yen currently.

It then organizes turning points such as industrial promotion (shokusan-kogyo), world exposition participation, and post-war reconstruction, providing an overview of 160 years of craft industrial history. This structure enables readers to share an understanding of crafts’ positioning as industries supporting regional economies, transcending the fixed notion of “cultural properties.”

Chapters 3-4: Craft Revival and Tourism Strategies

These chapters introduce craft ventures and traditional business transformations that emerged since the 2000s through case studies, concretizing “profit-generating mechanisms” such as design renewal, D2C, and cross-border EC. Furthermore, they explore integration with tourism through regional tours, workshops, and inbound visitor attraction, organizing success factors within a framework of “customer experience × regional story × revenue diversification.”

These serve as practical information directly applicable to regional branding and lending/investment decisions by regional financial institutions.

Chapters 5-6: International Expansion and “Future of Crafts” Proposals

Finally, the book organizes the latest trends in international expansion, including sales channel development for European and American luxury markets and Southeast Asian affluent consumers, utilization of international trade fairs, and joint ventures with local capital. In conclusion, it presents proposals for both policy and business, such as “educational schemes promoting human resource circulation,” “joint procurement through inter-regional networks,” and “DX infrastructure development,” explaining how readers can draw roadmaps for their own regions.

Reading the Frontlines of Craft Revival Through Keywords

“Tradition is not just about preservation; it’s time to nurture it by changing how we sell,”
the book repeatedly emphasizes.

Using this insight as a guide, we analyze the latest examples currently in motion through three perspectives: design/distribution/branding, craft tourism, and international expansion.

Each section is presented from a “this can be tried starting tomorrow” viewpoint, so please use them as hints when applying them in regions or companies.

Success Factors in Design, Distribution, and Branding

Wajima lacquerware collaborated with Wedgwood, the British Royal Warrant holder, on a table coordination project, re-appealing earthquake-affected craftspeople’s skills to the global market.
External designers helped break the “luxury lacquerware = Japanese room” image, leading to new procurement by department stores and overseas buyers.

In distribution, the craft-specialized mall BECOS, supporting seven languages, combined manufacturer direct sales with cross-border crowdfunding, creating projects that raised over 7.5 million yen on Kickstarter. The fact that manufacturers could sell over 200 units while maintaining their pricing is noteworthy as a model for “reclaiming pricing power.”

Common to both companies are three basic practices:

• 1: Partnering with external creative talent to propose “what people want now”
• 2: Creating proprietary sales channels to secure profit margins
• 3: Communicating craft techniques and regional stories in the same tone in English

Mechanisms of “Craft Tourism” That Revitalize Regions

In regions combining tourism with manufacturing, short-duration models completing “observation → experience → purchase” within half a day are becoming mainstream. In Ishikawa Prefecture’s Kutani ware area, a two-stage approach of first releasing VR kiln tours online to attract potential visitors wanting to “see it in person next” proved successful.

On-site, EC coupons were issued after painting experiences, with reports of double-digit increases in repeat purchase rates after returning home. When this cycle of raising interest online, deepening experience in person, and continuing relationships through EC is established, not only visitor numbers but the gross profit of the entire region improves.

Crafts Valued in Overseas Markets and Regional Revitalization Models

Overseas buyers emphasize the combination of “traditional techniques × contemporary applications × sustainability.”

The Arita porcelain brand ARITA PORCELAIN LAB developed ultra-thin plates for restaurants and received high praise at European gift trade fairs. Explaining the resource-saving benefits of thinness reportedly increased negotiation success rates.

Meanwhile, the art museum hotel Espacio Hakone Geihinkan Rinpo-Kiryu, which opened in Hakone in spring 2024, adopted different crafts such as kumiko woodwork and lacquer in each guest room, establishing a “selling the entire region” model that maintains accommodation rates while generating orders for artists.

For export support, JETRO’s “New Export 10,000 Companies Support Program” provides integrated support for logistics, translation, and insurance, creating an environment where small and medium-sized craft businesses can more easily challenge initial exports. From these examples, we can see that overseas sales channels can become engines of regional revitalization that generate not only sales expansion but also employment and related population growth.

By overlaying the examples mentioned here with the book’s framework, readers can objectively diagnose their company’s or region’s “current state” and more easily envision the next move. Preserving tradition while updating sales methods—hints for this are already being proven at the frontlines.

Recommended Readers & Application Scenarios

Reconsidering traditional crafts “not as cultural properties but as profitable industries”—the perspective the book presents offers specific hints to different stakeholders in their respective positions. Below, we organize which chapters and examples are useful for each reader type while guiding you to the “key reading points.”

Insights for Traditional Craft Businesses and Regional Workshops

The collaboration case between Wajima lacquerware and Wedgwood, which increased added value through cooperation with external designers, demonstrates that “new customers can be developed even in high-price segments.” You can experience from a field perspective how incorporating third-party art direction and fusing techniques with contemporary design can rapidly expand sales venues.

Furthermore, the model where the seven-language cross-border EC platform BECOS simultaneously achieved sales channels and fundraising through manufacturer direct sales + crowdfunding presents a realistic path for “going overseas while protecting profit margins without intermediaries.” By reading these success factors against the book’s framework—design investment, D2C transformation, story visualization—you should naturally see improvement points and next strategies for your own products.

Key Points for Administrative, Financial, and Tourism Personnel

For improving the entire region’s earning capacity, tourism designed comprehensively for “observation → experience → purchase → revisit” becomes key.

For example, in the Kutani ware region, combining VR kiln tours to attract potential visitors, on-site experiences with EC coupons reportedly increased repeat purchase rates by double digits.

Additionally, the art museum hotel Espacio Hakone Geihinkan Rinpo-Kiryu, which opened in Hakone, adopted different techniques such as kumiko, lacquer, and karakami paper in each guest room, establishing a “selling the entire region” model that increases accommodation rates while generating orders for artists.

Furthermore, JETRO’s “New Export 10,000 Companies Support Program,” which provides integrated support for logistics and translation, serves as practical reference for regional banks and local governments supporting exports.

Reading these examples while cross-referencing with the chapter structure allows efficient extraction of evidence directly applicable to tourism measures, subsidy design, and lending/investment decisions.

Useful Applications for Students and Creators

Chapters 1-2, which organize the craft journey over 160 years from the Meiji period to the present, serve as valuable teaching materials for students learning cultural history and industrial history.
With abundant numbers and chronologies, reliable statistical and institutional data suitable for direct citation in report writing is available.

For creators studying design or product development, the “process of adapting traditional techniques to contemporary life” appearing in Chapters 3-4 and product examples praised at overseas trade fairs provide concrete procedures for material selection and storytelling.

Furthermore, the policy proposal section in the final chapter systematizes frameworks for solving regional issues (human resource development, DX, joint procurement, etc.), directly applicable to graduation research and business plan framework development. This breadth of learning effectiveness makes the book valuable as “more than a textbook, less than a manual.”

Summary

“Crafts as Industry: Regional Revitalization Through Manufacturing” looks back at 160 years of craft development while transcending the framework of “traditional crafts = cultural properties” to present regeneration models as profit-generating “regional industries.” Within its substantial 372 pages, it carefully weaves together the reality of shipment values declining from approximately 500 billion yen in the 1990s to less than 100 billion yen today, alongside specific examples of regions achieving renewed growth, providing a comprehensive view of both challenges and possibilities.

The book’s proposed solution is simply to “preserve techniques while changing sales methods.” Examples of modernizing applications through collaboration with external designers and reclaiming pricing power through D2C and crowdfunding are scattered throughout each chapter. Additionally, it introduces successful patterns of craft tourism that use VR experiences as entry points to guide visitors to regional tours and encourage repeat purchases through EC coupons, creating a structure where practical implementation procedures can be immediately envisioned after reading.

Traditional craft businesses and regional workshops can gain hints for new revenue sources from the chapters on design renewal and cross-border sales.
Administrative, financial, and tourism business personnel can absorb evidence usable for subsidy design and lending/investment decisions from the chapters on tourism and international expansion.
For students and creators, the industrial history data from modern to contemporary times and abundant examples provide a solid foundation for report and proposal writing.

What’s needed to connect tradition to the future is the perspective to distinguish between “techniques to preserve” and “sales methods to change.”
This book serves as a guidebook systematizing both axes, providing actionable insights for readers regardless of regional size or occupation. We hope you’ll use it as a compass to turn pages while comparing with field challenges and concretize your next moves.