TOKYO – It sounds like something out of Willy Wonka’s imagination, but starting this month, travelers on Japan’s Sanriku Railway Network can use KitKat bars as a payment method. The promotion, which will last until May 2015, is part of a public relations campaign to revive tourism in a region still struggling after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster that occurred there three years ago.

Special KitKat candy bar wrappers will double as train tickets, and will be sold for $1.06 (108 yen), which is less than the $1.87 (190 yen) that an ordinary railway ticket sells for.

It's common in Japan to give Nestlé’s KitKats to another person as a message of good luck, as the name is similar to the Japanese phrase “Kitto-Katsu,” which means “you will surely win.”

“Nestle discovered that the reconstruction team working on the railway [after the earthquake and tsunami] had received KitKat products as a form of encouragement,” Nestlé said in a press release. The company began helping with the effort through donations and community outreach such as painting cherry blossoms on two trains and stations, as a symbol of hope.