Saga Dam Godzilla mural live tourism monthly active visitors surge 10,000

Dams are cleaned up after years of use. Should we just clean them up and call it a day? That would be a waste. Previously, Japan's Saga Prefecture carried out a special cleaning of a dam that had accumulated moss and dirt for many years. Originally, there were only 300 tourists visiting the dam each year, but now the number of active tourists per month has skyrocketed to 10,000, with many people checking in.

Last November, the Iwaya River Dam in Saga Prefecture celebrated its 50th anniversary. The authorities decided to clean the dam, so a special idea came to mind. That's right, after using an elegant water gun to wash most of the area clean, only part of the dam surface was left to create this special edition of the huge Godzilla mural.

Godzilla was designated as a "tourism ambassador" by Saga Prefecture in October last year because the side profile of Godzilla made the geographical map of Saga Prefecture look so beautiful. This event was a huge success. Not only did it make the cleaning more meaningful, it also boosted the tourism economy.