How cat has earned Japanese city millions
// October 7th, 2008 // No Comments » // News
As the economic might of Japan faces up to the global banking crisis, a single cat has boosted the finances of a small Japanese city by millions of dollars, according to a study.
Tortoiseshell Tama is the “stationmaster” of the unmanned Kishi train station where she was born and raised on the provincial Kishigawa Line.
But it is not her labours on the platform which have seen the cash rolling in.
It is rather Tama’s irresistible charm which has brought tourists flocking in their thousands to the western city of Kinokawa to see the feline worker patrolling in the uniform of her office – a Wakayama Electric Railway cap.
With 55,000 more people having used the Kishigawa Line than would normally be expected, Tama’s contribution to the local economy is calculated to have reached as much as Y1.1 billion ($A13.5 million) in 2007 alone, (more…)
