TOKYO -- One of Japan's largest exhibition centers and a major department store chain are helping make prayer rooms for Muslims more common in the Tokyo area.

As ever greater numbers of Southeast Asian tourists and business travelers come to Japan, places that pack in crowds are making efforts to accommodate them, and not just with halal foods.

Tokyo Big Sight will set up a temporary prayer room for the 2014 Japan International Machine Tool Fair, which starts Oct. 30. More than 8,000 people from over 70 countries attended the biennial event the last time it was held. Southeast Asians are expected to come in greater numbers this time. Tokyo Big Sight says it may make prayer rooms a permanent feature.

Last month, Takashimaya became the first Japanese department store operator to set aside a space for Muslims to pray. The company had already been making an effort to accommodate observant Muslims, allowing them to use fitting rooms to pray, for example. It saw enough demand to create a full-fledged prayer room at its Shinjuku store, with two washing areas and an arrow pointing in the direction of Mecca.

Takashimaya says the room gets used several times a day. The store saw a roughly 20% increase in Indonesian customers in the March-August half compared with a year earlier.

Even the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum readied prayer mats and a compass for finding the direction of Mecca last year to cater to growing numbers of noodle-loving Malaysian and Indonesian visitors.

Perhaps the greatest need for prayer rooms is at airports, the gateway for Muslims entering and leaving Japan. Narita Airport, which has offered prayer rooms since 2005, increased their number from two to four in July. Muslims departing the country now have a place to pray after they have cleared immigration control. Haneda Airport set up a prayer room at its departure lobby in March in conjunction with an increase in international flights. More than 2,000 people have used it so far.

Some 300,000 people from Indonesia and Malaysia came to Japan last year, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization, which reported increases of around 35% in visitors from both countries. Japan has seen a sharp uptick in Southeast Asian tourists since July of last year, when it eased visa issuance rules.

(Nikkei)