Early this year, the league signed a multiyear partnership with JTB, Japan’s largest travel agency. Japan has long had many baseball fans and produced some star players in the U.S., including Ichiro Suzuki, who is expected to be inducted in the Hall of Fame next year, and former Dodgers pitcher Hideo Nomo. But Ohtani is in a different category, said Kaori Mori, JTB’s branding and PR manager in Tokyo.

“We feel that this situation is making people who never thought of going all the way to the U.S. to watch baseball consider going to the U.S.,” Mori said. She said there was so much demand for the Dodgers-Padres series in Seoul earlier this month that JTB held a lottery for its tour packages.

With JTB and other firms offering more tour specials that include the Dodgers, officials in Los Angeles and California are hoping for a nice bounce in visitors from Japan, one of the oldest and most lucrative markets for the state.

More than 520,000 visitors from Japan are expected to spend some $1.5 billion in California this year. And already some have booked tours just to get a glance of Ohtani, according to anecdotal accounts.

Little Tokyo’s Miyako Hotel, home to the Ohtani mural, expects to see an increase of Japanese tourists after the country’s Golden Week holiday period at the end of April and beginning of May. Ahead of the Dodgers’ home opener, the hotel was already hosting one or two tour groups in L.A. specifically to see Ohtani, said Risa Oyama, sales manager at the hotel.

The hotel, which is part of a Japanese chain, is celebrating Ohtani’s Dodgers debut by offering special blue bread at its cafe and is experimenting with a blue cocktail that will be offered at its karaoke bar.

When renowned muralist Robert Vargas came to hotel executives with the idea for the mural, titled “L.A. Rising,” Miyako representatives figured, “Why not?”

“We were just so excited to hear back in December that (Ohtani) would be joining the Dodgers,” Oyama said. “What can we do as a Japanese hotel to support a Japanese player? No one is as big of an influence as him.”

Like the rest of Little Tokyo, the Miyako’s business suffered during the pandemic as international tourism sputtered and still hasn’t fully recovered. And for the rest of the neighborhood, rising rents and the creeping effects of gentrification in the cultural community have either pushed out longtime businesses, including Suehiro’s Cafe, or forced them to close.

It’s partly why Vargas pitched the mural in the first place. Born and raised in Boyle Heights, Vargas frequented Little Tokyo since he was a child. He felt compelled to boost economic support for Little Tokyo through his work, especially as he saw longtime business owners shut their doors.

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