The number of people visiting Japan hit record levels in 2024, but top ‘Golden Route’ destinations such as Kyoto and Osaka are suffering from overcrowding. If current trends are unsustainable, where should people go instead? Adam Withnall reports from Tokyo
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When a Chilean woman posted a video on Instagram of herself doing pull-ups at a sacred Torii gate at a Japanese shrine, the reaction was almost immediate. For many in Japan, it was just the most recent example of tourism’s demise: foreign visitors with no interest in understanding the local culture using their country as their playground.
International tourism in Japan has exploded in recent years and, even if the official figure for 2024 has not yet been published, it is now a new record of more than 31. 9 million visitors in 2019 before the start of the Covid-19 Pandemia. Training
This boom has corresponded with a rise in clashes between locals and foreigners, from monuments and shrines being defaced with graffiti to the decision to cover up views of Mount Fuji after they went too viral online. Japan has not yet seen the same anti-tourism backlash as Tenerife last summer, where protesters confronted holidaymakers on their beach towels, but there are growing concerns the situation could head in that direction if such clashes of culture are not addressed.
While popular cities such as Kyoto, Tokyo and Osaka are flooded with crowds of tourists, especially in the cherry blossom seasons in spring and golden-colored cherry blossoms in autumn, the Japanese government is now asking foreign visitors to travel during the off-peak periods and rest. the beaten path. – and respect local customs.
Even the Japanese government was astonished by the sharp increase in overseas visits; It has shattered its goal of recovering pre-pandemic tourist titles by 2025. In interviews with The Independent in Tokyo, government officials and industry leaders admitted that existing trends are not sustainable.
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. Heavily tainted and loaded with meaning, the undeniable act of providing matcha green tea to a guest has an art form over the centuries, even splitting into other styles and schools of thought.
Alpha Takahashi works as a translator in the great Tokyo tea ceremony and explains the importance 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, a sense of tea rite.
Organisers told The Independent that the occasion has become increasingly popular in the 15 years since it launched, expanding to a moment in place and promoting tickets weeks in advance. Tourists to “experience the hospitality of the Japanese”.
Takahashi says that in the early years of the event, foreign visitors were mostly invitees from embassies. Now tourists can be seen in long queues inside Hama-rikyu Gardens, hoping for the release of ticket resales, and she says she meets guests from all over the world who have “planned their trip to Japan around it”.
Like many aspects of life in Japan, the tea ceremony events are well-organised, structured and orderly. But other popular tourist destinations have struggled to cope with the influx of visitors, and tourism has injected unwanted chaos into the lives of locals.
Commuters in Kyoto must fight for space with luggage-wielding tourists on the overworked bus network, and local authorities earlier this year put up hoardings to block the view of Mount Fuji after residents of Fujikawaguchiko lost patience with tourists littering and spilling over into the road next to an unassuming Lawson convenience store.
Many restaurants in Japan are a small circle of kinship businesses targeting a handful of tables at a time. The owners may not speak English and may be wary of serving foreign consumers who do not understand what they order. A search of one-star online reviews for many restaurants, even in Tokyo or Kyoto, shows examples of dissatisfied tourists who have just been refused door service.
The overcrowding at the most popular destinations is encouraging tourists themselves to seek out quieter and more culturally enriching alternatives, particularly on a second or third visit.
“We see in the news that grandmothers and grandparents cannot take the bus to Kyoto, and it’s heartbreaking,” Takahashi said. “But at the same time array . . I am very grateful for the other people who have already come to live it, now doing a moment saying:” It is fine, let’s go back and enjoy Japan differently, let’s move on to places. “Where We have not. “
At the Japan Tourism Agency, officials know that immediate entry is proving problematic.
“Yes we have concerns about overtourism,” says Shota Adachi, deputy director of the agency’s strategy planning division. “If too many people are coming and then the locals are not feeling well, [feeling] uncomfortable, that’s also not sustainable.”
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 want to do is not trying to restrict the numbers, [the message is not] ‘don’t come to Japan anymore’,” he says. “It’s about trying to spread the demand.
“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.”
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Kusatsu and Ikaho are Onsen towns available from Tokyo as opportunities for the most notable Hakone. Those who need to pass an additional look, visit Beppu Onsen and Dopass Onsen in ōita and Ehime, respectively.
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Isa, Kagoshima Tourists can experience farming and cooking local produce in Japan’s rice-bowl
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Iya Valley, Tokushima straw farms, hot springs and a historic vine bridge in one of Japan’s most remote mountainous regions
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Shirakawa-gō is a small historic village one hour’s drive from Kanazawa
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A vital component of the solution, he says, is to better teach foreign visitors about how they are expected to behave in Japan; hence the new etiquette advisor. The consultant may soon be posted in one form or another on planes to Japan, along with the more familiar protection videos at the start of flights. “That’s something we could paint on,” Adachi says.
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, an associate professor at Rikkyo University’s School of Tourism, is wary of more projects to bill foreign tourists more or to factor them with strict orders upon arrival in the country. Both will most likely damage the reputation of hospitality in Japan, he suggests.
Instead, he believes that Japan leverages the concept of Machizukuri, literally “neighborhood building,” the concept of other local people protecting their own heritage and way of life. If more tourists can be drawn from big cities to see more of Japan as a whole, he says, it provides a more authentic and less crowded delight while helping to maintain rural communities.
“In rural areas, the population is decreasing,” he says. “We want to use tourism to revitalize those areas . . . using tourism to maintain cultural heritage and [at the same time] opening up some cultural assets to tourists. »
Leaving the threshed roads is, by definition, a more complicated attitude for those who plan to make their own reservation in Japan: the new visitors in particular are more likely to follow what is called the “golden route” of Tokyo. Monte Fuji, Kyoto and Meta in Osaka.
This is where a professional can provide added value, says Kuniharu Ebina, president of the Japanese Travel Agents Association.
He points to figures that show just how tightly concentrated foreign tourists are in a very small number of places, and compare that to Japanese domestic tourists who, exploring their own country, are spread out through its different regions much more evenly.
“Japanese people know a lot of nice areas of Japan that foreigners don’t know,” he says. “There’s still more that we can do, as the tourism industry [to promote that information]. We are also working on providing new experiences for foreign tourists, such as incorporating activities and local food into tours.”
The truth is that over -tourism -related disorders will worsen before improving; Since the weak Yen makes visits more affordable, a new record is expected to be established this year.
Professor Nishikawa is that the dramatic increase in inbound tourism has increased the value of overseas flights, making overseas vacations even more expensive for the Japanese themselves. It is natural, he suggests, that such a dynamic could turn public opinion against tourists if properly controlled.
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 just started globalisation in the tourism industry, while other countries started earlier and are therefore more experienced,” he says. “We should also learn from [what’s happening in] other countries.”
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