The number of people visiting Japan reached record levels in 2024, but more sensible “Golden Route” destinations such as Kyoto and Osaka suffer from overcrowding. If current trends are sustainable, where will others go? Adam from Tokyo Reports
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When a Chilean woman posted a video on Instagram of her doing pull-ups on a sacred Torii in a Japanese shrine, the reaction was almost immediate. For many in Japan, this was just the latest example of tourism: foreign visitors who have little interest in understanding local culture and using their country as a playground.
International tourism in Japan has shot in recent years and the official figure by 2024 has not yet been published; Now it is certain that it will be a new record of more than 31. 9 million people who visited it in 2019 before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. 19 Pandemia.
The boom has coincided with an intensification of the confrontations between premises and foreigners, from monuments and sanctuaries disfigured with graffiti until the resolution of covering the perspectives of Mount Fuji after becoming too viral online. Japan has not seen the same antituristic reaction in Tenerife last summer, where protesters faced tourists for their beach towels, but considerations are being developed that the scenario could go in this direction if those cultural clashes are addressed .
While popular cities like Kyoto, Tokyo, and Osaka are flooded with crowds of tourists, especially sakura cherry blossoms in spring and golden colors in autumn, the Japanese government is now asking foreign visitors to travel during off-peak periods and get off traffic. Beaten path. – and respect local customs.
Even the Japanese government surprised through the building on foreign visits; It surpassed its goal of tracking pre-pandemic tourism stocks through 2025. In interviews with The Independent in Tokyo, government officials and industry leaders admitted that existing trends they feared are not lasting.
The Japan Tourism Agency, the government body responsible for the country’s tourism strategy, has released a new seven-point guide on “travel etiquette”, asking foreign visitors to educate themselves about local customs before traveling, “mind your manners” while in Japan and “respect cultural assets” including temples and shines.
Japan prides itself on its hospitality, and nowhere is this more evident than in the cultural practice of tea ceremonies. Enhancing form and laden with meaning, the undeniable act of providing matcha green tea to a guest has been an art form throughout the centuries, even dividing into other styles and schools of thought.
Alpha Takahashi works as a translator of the wonderful Tokyo tea ceremony, explaining the importance of each level of the procedure to English -speaking tourists. She is a professional dubbing actress founded in Los Angeles, but returns to Japan twice a year to help her mother, Sensei, at the tea ceremony.
Organizers tell The Independent that the occasion has become increasingly popular in the 15 years since it was launched, expanding to on-site time and promoting tickets weeks in advance. Tourists “feel the hospitality of the Japanese. “
Takahashi says that in the early years of the event, foreign visitors were more commonly visitors. Now we can see tourists standing in long lines, the inner gardens of Hama-Rikyu, hoping to free up tickets, and she says she knows visitors from all over the Global who “planned their to Japan based on it. “
Like many facets of life in Japan, tea ritual occasions are organized, structured and orderly. But other popular tourist destinations have struggled to cope with the influx of visitors, with tourism injecting unwanted chaos into residents’ lives.
Kyoto’s travelers will have to fight for space with tourists, having luggage in the bus network with excess of work, and the local government earlier this year created a plan to block the view of Mount Fuji after the citizens of Fujikawaguchiko lost their patience with tourists who jump and arrive in mass. Next road to a Lawson convenience store without pretensions.
Many restaurants in Japan are small, family-owned businesses that serve a handful of tables at a time. The owners would possibly not speak English and would possibly be wary of serving foreign consumers who do not perceive what they are ordering. A search for one-star online reviews for many restaurants, including in Tokyo or Kyoto, shows examples of disgruntled tourists who have just refused service at the door.
The massification in most destinations encourages tourists themselves to find quieter and more culturally enriching alternatives, especially in a second or third visit.
“We see in the news that grandmothers and grandparents cannot get on the bus in Kyoto, and it’s heartbreaking,” says Takahashi. “But at the same time . . . I am very grateful for the other people who have already come to delight, now taking a moment saying:” It’s fine, let’s go back and delight in Japan in another way, go to the posts where we have had not. “
In the Tourism Agency of Japan, officials are aware that immediate entry is demonstrating to be a problem.
“Yes, we are involved in superpopulism,” says Shota Adachi, deputy director of the agency’s strategic manufacturing plans division. “If many other people come and citizens don’t feel well, [they feel] uncomfortable, that’s not sustainable either. »
He says the government is formally still committed to a target of welcoming 60 million annual foreign tourists by 2030, but that this will only be viable if they can be spread out – both geographically across the country, and throughout the year including the off-peak season.
“What we have to do is verify to limit the figures, [the message is]” no longer reaches Japan, “he says. ” It’s about verifying to make the request.
“The important thing for Japan is to try to spread tourists to local areas, other than places like Tokyo or Kyoto, [or] Osaka. There are also many other nice places… attracting more tourists to those areas is something that will benefit not just the cities, but also those rural places.”
Akan, Hokkaido “More excursion guides, position for adventure hiking”
Recommended through Kuniharu Ebina.
Kusatsu and Ikaho are onsen towns reachable from Tokyo as alternatives to more famous Hakone. Those willing to go further should try Beppu Onsen and Dogo Onsen in Ōita and Ehime respectively.
Recommended via Shota Adachi
Isa, Kagoshima Tourists can experience farming and cooking local produce in Japan’s rice-bowl
Recommended through Kuniharu Ebina
IYA Valley, tokushima’s straw roof farms, hot springs and a historic wine bridge in one of the most remote mountainous regions in Japan
Recommended through Kuniharu Ebina.
Shirakawa-gō is a small historic village one hour’s drive from Kanazawa
Recommended by Alpha Takahashi
A vital component of the solution, he says, is to better teach foreign visitors how they behave in Japan, hence the new label advisor. The representative may soon be shown in airplane form on Japan-bound planes, perhaps alongside the more familiar safety videos at the start of flights. “This is anything we can work well on,” Adachi explains.
Another possibility under discussion is to charge foreigners more to visit the most popular shrines, resort towns and cities. Such taxes are decided by local authorities, and a number have decided to increase rates for accommodation tax or the use of onsen – hot springs bath-houses. Yet these are blanket rates, and do not apply at different levels for foreigners.
The mayor of Himeji, whose castle is one of the most iconic in the country, sparked a national debate by suggesting a higher entry fee for foreign visitors – arguing that the proceeds would help pay for local services and spread the financial benefits of tourism more equitably.
Ryo Nishikawa, associate professor at Rikkyo University’s college of tourism, is wary of initiatives to charge foreign tourists more, or to issue them with strict instructions upon arrival in the country. Both risk damaging Japan’s welcoming reputation, he suggests.
Instead, he believes that Japan takes advantage of the concept of Machizukuri – literally “neighborhood creation” -, the concept that other local people protect their own inheritance and way of life. If more tourists can be taken out of the big cities to see more than Japan as a whole, he says, a more authentic and less busy experience will be provided and, at the same time, it will help to maintain rural communities.
“In rural areas, the population is decreasing,” he says. “We want to use tourism to revitalize those areas…use tourism to maintain cultural heritage and [at the same time] open some cultural assets to tourists. »
Getting off the beaten track is, by definition, a more challenging prospect for those considering booking their own trip to Japan – first-time visitors in particular are much more likely to follow the so-called “Golden Route” from Tokyo to Mount Fuji, Kyoto and ending in Osaka.
This is where a professional can provide added value, says Kuniharu Ebina, president of the Japan Association of Travel Agents.
He refers to figures that show how tightly foreign tourists are concentrated in a very small number of places, and compares this to Japanese domestic tourists who, when exploring their own country, spread out slightly across their other regions.
“The Japanese know a lot of beautiful parts of Japan that foreigners don’t,” he says. “We can still do more as a tourism industry [to publicize this information]. We are also applying to offer new reports to foreign tourists, such as incorporating local activities and foods into the tours.
The truth is that disorders related to overtourism will get worse before they get better; With the weak yen making visits more affordable, it is expected to set a new record this year.
Professor Nishikawa notes that the dramatic increase in inbound tourism has pushed up the price of international flights – making holidays abroad even more expensive for Japanese people themselves. It’s only natural, he suggests, that such a dynamic could turn public opinion against tourists if not managed properly.
The onus is on the government to show the Japanese public why tourists provide a net benefit to the country, he says, and not just in terms of the money they spend.
“Japan has just started the globalization of the tourism industry, while other countries started earlier and therefore have more experience,” he says. “They also inform us of what is happening in other countries. “
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