Edo Japan's travel agents were called oshi.

The oshi were originally people of priestly status who performed prayers for worshippers. Kumano and Mt. Fuji had them too, but whereas elsewhere the word is read oshi, in Ise it is onshi.

Each oshi was responsible for particular regions of Japan, called danna-ba. Every year they visited the households in their territory, distributing Jingu's talismans (oharai taima) and the Ise-goyomi, a calendar that guided farm work. The Ise calendar became one of the most widely used in Japan, keeping Ise close to people all year round. And when those people actually came to worship, the oshi put them up in their mansions, arranged sacred dances and treated them to lavish feasts.

Pilgrims arriving in Ise were treated to every comfort.

Roughly every sixty years in the Edo period, an explosive mass pilgrimage called Okage Mairi broke out. It usually began with rumours — "talismans from Jingu are falling from the sky" — that spread like wildfire, and people dropped their work and set off for Ise.

Japan's population was then about 30 million. In the Okage Mairi of 1830, more than 4 million people are said to have set off for Ise within a few months — on simple arithmetic, one in every six or seven people.

The prosperity of the oshi gave Ise its own economy and self-government. From the medieval to the early modern period, Yamada, the gate town of Gekū, was run by a self-governing council called the Sanbō Egō, and Uji by the Uji Egō. Not samurai but leading townsmen, mostly oshi, handled administration and even justice.

And in Yamada, from around the early Edo period, paper certificates called Yamada hagaki circulated. Issued by merchant-oshi to make up for a shortage of small change, they are sometimes called Japan's oldest paper money. Seen as forerunners of the domain notes (hansatsu) later issued across Japan, they show how deep Ise's economy ran.

1. Medieval–The oshi credit networkPeople and money flowing between Ise and danna-ba nationwide
2. c. 1600Yamada hagaki issuedPaper certificates circulate to make up for a lack of coins
3. 17c–Domain notes spreadDomains across Japan begin issuing paper money
4. 1871The oshi system abolishedIn the Meiji shrine reforms, talisman distribution passes directly to Jingu

Pilgrims returning from Ise carried the Ise Ondo home, and it was absorbed into folk songs all over Japan. That songs echoing the Ise Ondo are still sung at festivals and banquets across the country is proof of how many people visited Ise and brought its memory back to their home towns.