Vulpix is taking Hokkaido, Japan, by storm with fifteen new decorative manhole covers following a similar project earlier this year that saw certain Rock and Ground type Pokémon used in the city of Ōfunato in the Iwate prefecture.
While Iwate’s manhole covered displayed a broad range of Rock and Ground types like Onyx, Aerodactyl, and Rhyhorn, to name a few, Hokkaido has chosen to focus solely on Vulpix in its original and Alolan form while interacting with different Pokémon. Tourists can travel around in search of each, and for Pokémon GO players, each manhole with host a PokéStop.
The project aims to lure more visitors to parts of Japan that may be considered more obscure and is an interesting method of drumming up interest in areas not normally associated with tourism. Each manhole cover is unique and the only of its kind, and diehard fans of the game may find it worth the time to travel far and wide to “catch” a glimpse of them all.
The official website provides a complete list of the manhole covers that can currently be found, including a full map of their locations. On Twitter, #Pokelids reveals hundreds of posts with people showing off the lids they have located, and many of the accounts promote exploring Japan to find as many as possible.
Considering how popular the Pokémon franchise is, and how relatively inexpensive these manhole covers likely are to create relative to other large-scale promotional events for tourism, we can probably expect to see a continued expansion of this project across Japan. With the current number of Pokémon in existence numbering 807, there's no shortage of characters to choose from.
The current collaboration with Pokémon GO is one way that the project can entice visitors from all over, but this seems like an opportunity that could be expanded upon in a major way. Rather than only have a Pokéstop located at each manhole cover, the rewards could be far more impressive or unique, which would give incentive to the hardcore player base to want to visit each site if possible.
Hopefully the project is considered a success by the parties involved, because the concept seems like a great way to encourage more sightseeing and could spread elsewhere. It would be fantastic to see this sort of official project spearheaded in Europe and the Americas. For now, though, these adorable manhole covers are exclusive to Japan.
Source: prtimes.jp