In an ingenious attempt to increase tourism for the cat-obsessed digital age, Hiroshima prefecture’s tourism board has launched a Google street view-esque cat’s eye map for cats. Walk through the city of Onomichi at cat level – other cats in the area that you can see are tagged with their profiles, which you can click to check out if you can read Japanese. Currently there are three paths to take, with more to come in the future in October. Watch this space:
“We were seeking to introduce a different way to look at our cities and offer a view of the streets that wasn’t available before,” a Hiroshima tourism official said. They decided on a cat’s-eye view because Onomichi, a port town known for its large number of cats, is also home to a museum dedicated to Japan’s ‘maneki-neko’ cat dolls, the official said.
The prefecture said it used 360-degree cameras similar to those used for the street-view maps created by Google Inc.
The map now covers a shopping arcade and surrounding areas in Onomichi, which is about 70 kilometers east of Hiroshima city. It includes most features seen on other interactive online maps, such as camera angle functions and details about local shops. It also has a selection of 11 pet cats kept in the area with links to their backgrounds.