Digitalized Osaka Expo troubling elderly visitors

Under the digital and paperless policies of the Expo, visitors are asked to use digital devices including smartphones to reserve admission to pavilions and search for locations they want to visit. 

This has drawn complaints such as "I don't know how to make reservations for pavilions," and "I can't get to places I want to go." 

"It's very nice that we can enter pavilions without queuing up if we can get reservations," said a 79-year-old male visitor from Tokyo. 

Meanwhile, a visitor in her 70s living in Osaka said, "Making a reservation is difficult, and I tried many times but couldn't do it." 

A male visitor, 82, from Ibaraki Prefecture, near Tokyo, could not enter the Japan Pavilion, run by the government. 

Its website says, "The Japan Pavilion can be viewed without advance reservations during certain times," which means that reservations are necessary for the other times. 

"I was told that same-day reservations would be fine," the Ibaraki man said: "Reservations after reservations. I'm getting sick of them." 

Maps are essential for visitors to arrive at their destinations in its huge venue. 

Visitors can get information about pavilions by tapping Expo's digital maps. 

But some visitors complain they cannot use them well, while others say they prefer paper maps to digital ones. 

Paper maps are sold at 200 yen in the venue, but waiting lines are long, and it sometimes took two hours to buy one. 

The Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition, the Expo operator, has increased cash registers at places where the paper maps are sold. 

"Is it appropriate that paper maps are selling well?" an association official said, referring to the situation contradicting the Expo's paperless policy. 

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]

Photo by Reuters