Metaverse for revitalization of Aizu-Wakamatsu city

Recently, the population of Aizu-Wakamatsu in Japan, and the number of tourists visiting Aizuwakamatsu is decreasing. It is a serious problem for Aizu in economic and population aspects. Entrepreneurship in Aizuwakamtsu may also suffer because of such problems. Aizu would become a sparse city with the decreasing population and the declining number of tourists. So, this article works on a preliminary analysis suggesting how such a problem could be potentially solved with Metaverse technology. Recently, Metaverse has been gathering attention rapidly for many fields, for example, business, game, and education because of COVID-19 virus. According to the statistical survey by Statista concerning the size of the global metaverse market, research shows that the market is expected to expand to 78,879.5 billion yen by 2030. However, Metaverse has not yet become common. So, the idea here is to introduce the potential of Metaverse with examples and propose preliminary ideas to revitalize Aizu with Metaverse. In this project, the consideration was focused on revitalization by using Metaverse and explore what kind of Metaverse-related technology and application could potentially be the most suitable for revitalization of Aizuwakamatsu city. To find out what application of Metaverse could be the best suited for regional revitalization, we conducted an initial survey and a literature-based SWOT analysis. Based on the results of this study, it is anticipated that the use of such Metaverse application in areas with the same characteristics as Aizu Wakamatsu City may be better suited. It may be concluded that regional revitalization using Metaverse could be feasible in Aizuwakamatsu City. Such productive use of Metaverse stems from the fact that people can come to online Aizu environment and be active there without travel expenses and other physical world problems and considerations that may be prohibitive from logistical and financial perspectives. However, Metaverse building is likely to incur high cost, and the server might be attacked. If access to Metaverse is compromised, users could not access online Aizu environment, and based on business interests and situations, there might be financial losses to be incurred. However, productive use of such technology towards Aizu revitalization will lead to business potential, profits and more and more users over time could be attracted to Aizu. Aizu would be more revitalized if Metaverse could ultimately promote business travels and tourism. If smart city Aizuwakamatsu could put in place a productive model for Metaverse use both in business and tourism, more small towns moving towards a smart city landscape may find such a model or approach productive and efficient towards revitalization.