QUICK LINKS
PREAMBLE
If HokkaidoWilds.org website visit numbers are anything to go by, Hokkaido has definitely rebounded from the pandemic. We saw record numbers of visitors to the site over the 2023/2024 winter season. This was certainly anecdotally backed up by observations in the backcountry, particularly in the Tokachi Range – it’s a massive skier’s paradise out there, and it was heart-warming to see so many people from around the world enjoying what Hokkaido’s winter hills have to offer.
Sales of Niseko Backcountry continued to go well, and we were over the moon to be able to donate almost US$10,000 mountain-related charitable causes in 2023.
KEY POINTS
ROUTE GUIDES
In 2023, we published 23 paddling routes and nine backcountry skiing routes – all with high-quality printable PDF maps for free download.
CHARITABLE DONATIONS
Bolstered by good sales of our Niseko Backcountry ski map, we were able to donate US$9,500 to charitable mountain organizations in 2023.
WEBSITE ACCESS
HokkaidoWilds.org again saw record numbers of visitors to the site in the 2023 financial year, with just under 35,000 visits in January 2024.
POSTS ADDED OVER THE YEAR
These are new route guides we published on HokkaidoWilds.org from April 1st 2023 till March 31st 2024.
SKI TOURING ROUTES
We published a total of nine established ski touring routes during the 2023 fiscal year. Many of them were focussed on the Tokachi and Daisetsuzan Ranges, but we also added a couple more to the Horokanai area just north of Asahikawa City, and one next to Kiroro ski area.
See all ski tour routes: https://hokkaidowilds.org/skitour
PADDLING ROUTES
It was a solid year of documenting and publishing both whitewater and sea kayaking routes in the 2023 fiscal year. Of the 23 paddling routes we published in 2023, 14 were sea kayaking routes, and 8 were whitewater sections of classic rivers like the Mukawa and Saru.
See all the paddling routes here: https://hokkaidowilds.org/water
HIKING ROUTES
We also managed to get six more hiking route guides our into the world, across a wide range of areas of Hokkaido. Perhaps a highlight was Apoi-dake in the southern end of the Hidaka Range (now part of the new Hidakasanmyaku-Erimo-Tokachi National Park).
See all the hiking routes here: https://hokkaidowilds.org/hike
OUTREACH
CHARITABLE DONATIONS
It was no small deal that in 2023, we were finally able to give back to the Hokkaido outdoor community in a considerable financial way. We were able to give 1,438,000yen (approx. US$9,500) to a number of mountain huts, avalanche information initiatives, search and rescue teams, and a mountain bike trail initiative in Niseko. The funds were made up of a combination of Niseko Backcountry map sales profit, donations from readers, personal donations from HokkaidoWilds.org authors, and employer matching (full details here).
PUBLIC APPEARANCES
As with previous years, we were happy to be invited to speak at a number of events and symposiums.
- GSI Map Fan Club – The Japan Geospatial Information Authority of Japan Map Fan Club holds meetings a few times per year. Rob was invited to their June 2023 meeting to present about the development of Niseko Backcountry (the map uses official Japan government topomap data) (June 10th, 2023 – link).
- 2023 Hokkaido Drive Tourism Promotion Platform Seminar – Rob spoke about having a clear target in mind when developing information for inbound foreign visitors to Hokkaido, and introduced HokkaidoWilds.org as an example. Hosted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism (July 26th, 2023 – link).
- Hokkaido Inbound Forum 2023 – Rob facilitated a talk session at the 2023 Hokkaido Inbound Forum, hosted by the Hokkaido District Transport Bureau (20th Feb, 2024 – link)
MEDIA APPEARANCES
- AirDo’s inflight magazine rapora – Rob was interviewed by the AirDo (ANA) inflight magazine staff for an article about backcountry skiing in Hokkaido (link).
COMMITTEE WORK
- Hokkaido Outdoor Forum | Rob continues to contribute time to help with the running of the annual Hokkaido Outdoor Forum: an annual gathering of over 200 people involved in the wider Hokkaido outdoor industry. He is part of the Steering Committee for the forum.
GOALS FOR THE FUTURE
In 2023, we hit our five-year targets for number of ski touring routes and paddling routes published on the site. It feels somewhat strange to have hit those targets, because it feels like there is so much more to explore.
For the hiking routes, this is perhaps an area where we could put more effort into. However, our focus is more on giving breath and light to outdoor pursuits in Hokkaido that otherwise don’t have much information published on the web (i.e., backcountry skiing and paddling in Hokkaido).
Progress towards 2025 Goals
WEB ANALYTICS
It’s quite alarming just how much HokkaidoWilds.org website visitorship has increased this year; almost double that of last year. This could be a reflection of larger travel trends around the world – people perhaps have healthy travel budgets after not being able to travel internationally during the pandemic, and are compensating for the lack of their Japan fix over the 3 years of travel restrictions (understandable!).
As usual, we see a big spike in Jan/Feb – the prime powder skiing time!
Website access by source
Sessions by source
Sessions by region
Users by region
Instagram and Facebook Engagement Rates
FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS (Apr ’23 – Mar ’24)
Apart from continued good sales of Niseko Backcountry (thank you to everyone who bought one), the great ‘highlight’ of HokkaidoWilds.org’s finances in the 2023 financial year was the need to get a bit more serious about accounting for the voluntary association’s incoming and outgoings.
Driving this renewed accounting motivation was the fact we were finally in a position to donate proceeds from Niseko Backcountry sales to mountain safety and access groups here in Hokkaido. We also needed to pay corporate tax – even though we’re an unincorporated voluntary association 任意団体, Niseko Backcountry is a revenue-generating operation 収益事業, so that means we need to register as a corporate tax 法人税 paying entity (we now have a corporate number 法人番号), and submit a tax declaration for that part of the association’s operations.
Timbah referred us to the pro-bono accounting NPO Accountability for Change, which was extremely helpful in helping Rob better categorize income and expenses (we use a paid Freee account for association accounting).
As a result, we discovered that in the 2022 financial year, we made a profit of just over 6,000yen, which required us to pay a grand total of 100yen to the Japan government. Somewhat annoyingly, however, registering as a corporate tax paying entity also meant we were now obliged to pay Sapporo City’s flat rate corporate tax of 70,000yen (this is payable for all corporate-tax paying entities even if revenues are negative for any given year).
Such is the cost of doing business.
As an aside, for the 2023 financial year, the revenue-generating project part of HokkaidoWilds.org’s operations (i.e., map sales), after accounting for tex-deductable charitable donations we made to other groups, posted a profit of 136,048yen, for which we’ll need to pay tax on in the 2024 financial year.
| FOUNDATION ACCOUNT | ||
|---|---|---|
| Income | ||
| A) Carried over Apr 1, 2023 | 22,774 | |
| Kofi Donations (50%) | 15,414 | |
| B) Total HokkaidoWilds Fund Income | 38,188 | |
| Outgoing | ||
| SAR Gear top-up (Yotei Fire Dept) | 38,188 | |
| C) Total Hokkaido Wilds Fund Outgoings | 38,188 | |
| YEAR-END FUND NET ASSETS as of 2024/3/31 (A+B)-C | 0 | |
| OPERATING ACCOUNT | ||
|---|---|---|
| Income | ||
| A) Carried over Apr 1, 2023 | 281,878 | |
| Donations (Kofi) | 61,301 | |
| Donations (Top-ups) | 93,886 | |
| Map sales (Wholesale) | 904,717 | |
| Map sales (Amazon) | 165,177 | |
| Map sales (Avenza) | 51,058 | |
| Affiliate Income | 12,386 | |
| B) Total income | 1,288,525 | |
| Expenses | ||
| Web (plugin licenses, hosting, CDN, Adobe subscription etc) | 259,709 | |
| Map Costs (development, printing, postage etc) | 88,802 | |
| Documentation costs (travel, vehicle etc) | 5,131 | |
| Miscellaneous (accounting etc) | 20,923 | |
| Gear | 8,850 | |
| Donation (Yotei Fire Dept) | 156,292 | |
| Donation (Japan Avalanche Network) | 140,000 | |
| Donation (Niseko Avalanche Accident Prevention Strategy Committee) | 50,000 | |
| Donation (Niseko Area Mountain Bike Association) | 77,000 | |
| Donation (Okuteine Yama-no-ie Hut) | 50,000 | |
| Donation (Muinejiri Hut) | 50,000 | |
| Donation (Teshio-dake Hut Firewood) | 50,000 | |
| Donation (Shokanso Hut) | 50,000 | |
| C) Total expenses | 1,006,299 | |
| D) Corporate Tax | 71,100 | |
| YEAR-END NET ASSETS as of 2023/3/31 (A+B)-(C+D) | 492,596 | |
