Influencers: Japan's secret weapon to promote niche tourism spots | Hacker News Reader

Influencers: Japan's secret weapon to promote niche tourism spots

japantimes.co.jp

87 pointsmikhael84 comments

For me, Japan’s secret tourism weapon is ubiquitous restroom access. In most EU and US cities, I waste tons of time trying to find a place to pee and it severely eats into my availability to shop or choose a well rated restaurant. Sorry, I walked past your cool looking shop at high speed because I was about to piss my pants. I end up with such a sour view of those cities probably because I am dehydrated and going through caffeine withdrawal. On my last trip to Japan, I averaged 20km of walking each day.

If your city can’t accommodate basic human needs, it doesn’t deserve my tourist $.

Full agree.

Come to Australia! Dunnys everywhere mate.

My secret shame is always carrying Here maps with lists of all McDonalds. Wi-Fi and restrooms what more do you need?

There are cities where that won't work: Lisbon (you need a code from the receipt to enter the bathroom).

Lisbon was where I pioneered it; you might have to buy something cheap, but at least you have a restroom available.

If you're really penny pinching, the ground is often littered with receipts.

If I am near a McDonalds while I am touring a city, it generally means I have made poor route decisions.

In return, we do have ubiquitous trash cans in EU and US cities, which are hard to come by in Japan.

And yet Japanese towns are cleaner and less grimy.

Japan is absolutely full of grimy streets and decaying buildings. Come on, outside of a few core neighborhoods, most Japanese towns and cities are ugly as sin.

Every konbini and vending machine has one, and those are EVERYWHERE.

I'm not sure how it's hard to find one.

The vending machines often have ones with a bottle shaped hole explicitly telling you to only throw bottles in there.

Vending machines do not have garbage cans. If you think they do, you're making a mistake.

Combini have been increasingly restricting access to the garbage can.

They've also been disappearing from train stations, where they used to be common.

It's interestingly a similar dynamic to washrooms in other countries: if only a few places have them, they get harder for those places to maintain as they get used so heavily. So nobody wants to maintain them anymore. On the other hand, when they're ubiquitous, it's easy to offer as a free service, because it will only be lightly used.

Because of the lack of garbage cans, I also reduce my consumption. That popsicle looks delicious but I don't want to walk around holding a popsicle stick for an hour, no thanks.

You put it back in the plastic, fold it up, and put it in your bag and take it home with you.

For some items that still gets quite messy! Especially things like kinako dango, with powder falling out of their crinkly plastic containers that don't seal shut. It's simply something of a deterrent that makes me think twice about if I should buy something, when I'll be carrying it around the rest of the day until I get home.

By far not every vending machine has it and even if it does - it's for cans/bottles only.

Konbini are nowhere close to EVERYWHERE. Just because you went to Tokyo city centre doesn't mean japan is same everywhere

I lived all over Kyushu, in Tokyo, in Nagoya, and in Hiroshima. I lived there off and on between 2005 and 2020.

Most of the vending machines I saw had both types next to them, and I never had an issue with accessing a trash can in a konbini.

I suppose we just had very different experiences.

every convenience store has one, and those are everywhere

In Hong Kong or other developed East Asian cities we have both :)

One of the many reasons why HK is my favorite place to be!

Long-time Japan resident here. I agree. And public restrooms have been improving. While I still, very occasionally, encounter one that has old or broken equipment or that needs cleaning, overall they are much cleaner and more pleasant than they were forty-two years ago, when I moved here. Restrooms in train stations in particular have improved immensely.

If I were asked to guess why restrooms in Japan are good and getting better, I would suggest a number of possible factors: public pressure on municipalities and businesses to create a positive experience for both residents and tourists; very little crime; large-scale homelessness being limited to a few parts of Tokyo, Osaka, Kawasaki, Yokohama, and one or two other large cities; and a widespread attitude that a lack of clean, available restrooms is abnormal and needs to be fixed.

A boom in tourism since COVID may be creating a challenge, though. The only two times recently when I have had trouble finding a public restroom were when I happened to go to areas crowded again with tourists: Asakusa in Tokyo and Namba in Osaka. I saw shops in both places with signs up in Japanese, English, and Chinese saying they didn’t have restrooms, presumably to keep tourists from coming in just to use the facilities. I can’t remember ever seeing that in non-touristy areas.

The recent movie Perfect Days (2023) seems to reflect this as well.

From wikipedia: "[Director Wim] Wenders was invited to Tokyo by Koji Yanai to observe the Tokyo Toilet Project, a project in which Japanese public toilets were redesigned in 17 locations throughout Shibuya with the help of 16 creators invited from around the world. Wenders was invited to take a look at the uniqueness of each of these facilities. At first, the producers envisioned Wenders would make a short film or series of short films on the facilities, but he opted for a feature film"

In Asakusa and other tourist places I typically go to 7-11. Hit the toilet immediately and buy a drink and snack and sit down to rest my sore feet. Has that changed?

Probably not. It’s only relatively recently—that is, relative to my four decades in Japan—that convenience stores have offered restroom access, and I often forget about them when I need to go. Thanks for the reminder.

Random tips:

Never go to Netherlands or Germany. Not a single (free) public toilet seems to exist there and the few they do have will make you pay at least 1 EUR per pee.

Switzerland and France has (free) public toilets AFAIK.

Portugal has free public toilets in almost every grocery store and public library.

>ubiquitous restroom access.

I think the antithesis of Japan would be NYC, where even as paying customer many locations don't have accessible facilities.

If you think the reason your city/subway "smells like piss" isn't because of lack of restrooms, then you're wrong councilperson.

> the government aims to attract more repeat travelers and are putting in efforts to promote less-visited places in the hopes of avoiding overtourism while helping to revitalize dwindling communities at the same time.

This is a good idea but unfortunately by dramatically raising the price of the JR Pass, tourists are now severely discouraged from buying it and from leaving Osaka and Tokyo, and overtourism in these cities is likely to get even worse.

Buying individual legs for a two week trip usually came out to be the same for most people anyways. The JR Pass rarely made sense (especially with the restrictions on riding the fastest bullet trains) and now the price reflects that.

Are you thinking of the faster bullet trains between Tokyo and Kyoto/Osaka? Part of the reason for the price increase has been said to specifically discourage tourists from using the pass for riding that route, as it was already very congested.

I don't really see the logic behind that myself. Tourists will still travel between those two cities. They will just travel less to other places that they don't prioritise as much.

I recall the 7 day JR Pass used to break even if you were going to do Tokyo -> Kyoto/Osaka and later back to Tokyo over a trip, maybe with an extra trip basically anywhere that could be a day trip. (e.g. Osaka to Hiroshima and back, or Tokyo to Sendai, or...) Now with the increased price you need even more trips to be worth it, which can be challenging in just 7 days. I don't think the restriction on not being able to use the fastest bullet trains is that big of a deal for most tourists.

Yeah this is basically what I was thinking of. The classic trip was Tokyo to Osaka, Kyoto and back and with the JR Pass that would have strongly incentivized you to go beyond Osaka to like Hiroshima and other places because at that point it was free.

Now it will cost more to go to Hiroshima+ and so less people will do that.

I paid $488 in 2019 for a 14 day JR pass. In 2024, the same pass is $60 more. I wouldn't call that a dramatic increase, and still within the same magnitude of affordability?

https://www.jrpass.com/buy-the-japan-rail-pass-online

No he's right. The JRP is not sold in dollars but in yens so your comparison is likely skewed by exchange rates. Price rose by 50 to 70% near the end of 2023. I was lucky enough to get one at the old price on my last trip, and new prices aren't worth it anymore (esp. given you can't ride the best trains); old prices was already ok only if you planned to travel a lot.

But nobody is buying with income made in yen, because there is basically no way to make money in yen and be eligible to buy the railway pass.

Most credit cards can do foreign transactions, and a number of travelers have cards that can do those transactions with no fees at fairly competitive exchange rates. In the past, most of those were limited to cards with annual fees, but it's easier now to get such cards with no fees (e.g. Apple Card). Personally, I purchased the pass online from JR in JPY with a US Visa card, which converted it to a USD price that came out ahead of all the authorized resellers that sold the pass in USD.

But isn’t it a requirement that you are a tourist (as in, you have a 90day visa exemption or a tourist visa in your passport)? And if you are a tourist to Japan it is very unlikely that your income is denominated in yen, and therefore the cost in yen is not as relevant as the cost in USD or yuan. So the price increase should be considered against the yen depreciation.

I couldn’t buy one when I was an exchange student in Japan, due to my visa status (granted, that was over a decade ago …) but sibling comments seems to indicate maybe I could today.

It also sounds like you are making money in USD and not yen, so the price of the pass in yen is not important to you, but the price in USD.

Ah, I think we're talking about different things. I think you are talking about the overall affordability of the JR pass (and Japan tourism in general) to someone whose income is in USD, whereas I was talking about how much more expensive the JR pass is relative to the cost of train tickets (also denominated in JPY, and therefore also cheaper to people using USD), and it being possible to pay the JPY price of the pass directly without making income in JPY, despite all the authorized resellers pricing the pass in the currency of their target markets.

To give a further clarifying example, if I were planning to take the shinkansen round-trip between Tokyo and Osaka, the price is JPY 28000. Back when the JPY was stronger, the price of the 7-day pass was JPY 29650, so the pass would have been a no-brainer. Today, even though the 7-day pass costs JPY 50000, the currency is much weaker, so the USD price has increased only a little bit. However, the price of that train trip in JPY has not changed much, if at all. Therefore, because JPY 28000 (USD 184) is significantly less than JPY 50000 (USD 330), it makes no sense at all to buy the pass today if this is the only JR trip I'm planning to make.

That said, the pass is still only for those with a tourist visa (15-90 days for sightseeing), or for Japanese citizens who have lived abroad for at least 10 years.

JR East had a 5-day pass which iirc only required you to have a foreign passport (vs being required to be a tourist for JR-Central/JR-West passes). Not sure if they still offer that, though.

I had a 7-day pass in 2017 for $255, 14-day in 2022 for $365, and a 7-day in 2023 for $207. That page shows $343 and $548 for 7-day/14-day respectively now. It's all within the realm of "affordability" for a tourist, but it no longer makes financial sense for a lot of travel itineraries.

For what it's worth, jrpass.com is a reseller. JR nowadays has an official online site to sell the pass, which prices in JPY. https://japanrailpass.net/en/

Others have pointed out the currency conversion, which helps in keeping it affordable. But it's worth pointing out that individual train fares are also priced in JPY, and therefore are also cheaper in USD because of the same currency conversion. Compared to the huge increase in price of the pass, train fares themselves have stayed relatively stable. As a result, while the pass itself may still be affordable to those of us using USD, it's even more likely nowadays that it just makes more sense to pay for the individual train fares than for the pass.

Before the price increases, you could "pay off" a JR Pass with a single Narita Airport-Tokyo-Osaka roundtrip, it was cheaper than buying regular tickets for the same distance and every additional train was "free". After the price hike, you could cross the entire country to Fukuoka and the pass would still cost more.

the JR pass is almost never a good deal. you need to do a significant amount of travel over a significant distance in a short amount of time and is a very inconvenient way to travel compared to just using an IC card plus adhoc shinkansen tickets.

An easy-to-understand, single-price ticket that doesn’t require detailed planning is a very good argument for tourism.

While the IC card is great and a must-have, the reusable ticket for entry/exit of JR stations isn't exactly inconvenient. If you haven't been back in a while the JR pass is even more convenient than it once was, you can now book your shinkansen reserved seat tickets at the kiosks like you would have to do anyway for an adhoc one, no more having to go into the office. (I think you can also do it online as well but I didn't experiment with that, I was satisfied with the kiosks or just yolo'ing it with snagging an unreserved seat.)

At least in 2023, online was still fragmented / unnavigable to foreigners or just broken. The kiosks worked well though but we had to be shown the right ones.

I just bought it online a two weeks ago and it was super easy, they even send you frequent reminders before your trip so you don't miss it: https://smart-ex.jp/en/index.php

You can do it online as long as you purchase your JR pass from the official JR-operated websites (https://japanrailpass.net/en/ -> https://www.japanrailpass-reservation.net/), and not through any of the third-party authorized resellers (e.g. jrpass.com, which appears to have won the SEO game). I was able to book tickets on specific trains online quite conveniently through the same website that I purchased the pass. While I still needed to go to a kiosk to print out tickets, I feel like I reaped the benefits of it by being able to snag windows seats early on a few scenic yet nearly full trains.

the kiosk factor is great to hear. Ive tourguided foreigners around several times in the past and having to wait on them to do everything seperately in the office always took the wind out of my sails when getting around.

100%. Most first-time visitors don’t expect that their pass is useless on days you remain within a city, and that they’re burning money on an unused pass day. And a trip like Osaka-Kyoto is what, $10 normally?

I priced out a complicated multi-city itinerary for a family visit and even with a lot of long distance trains it basically broke even.

Unless you use Chuo and Yamanote to get around in Tokyo or need to take Narita Express or Monorail to the airport. Or you want to get from central Osaka to Namba by Kansai or out to Nara, or all the way to Kyoto, or take a ferry to an island.

There's lots of things that the JR Pass works for that aren't Shinkansen and they used to add up even if it was just $10/day, and you didn't have to worry about it. Just the Narita Express was $30-40 one way.

With the new pricing... not so much. Just get SUICA unless you're going all the way from Sapporo to Fukuoka and back.

I remember my first trip to Japan in 2012 and it being a bad deal then. Not sure if this has changed but there was no "one" JR Pass either - you had to either choose JR East or JR West. If I were doing it again in 2024 I wouldn't bother, especially if my plans were to explore Tokyo and Osaka with day trips to Kyoto and Nara inbetween.

I wonder if they have stats that indicates repeat travelers (who are more likely to stop by those small villages) are less likely to purchase JR Pass, even when it was cheaper. Anecdotally, my friends and I stopped bothering, especially after most of us started flying to HND to save time, or switched to riding airport buses or the Keisei Skyliner, thus don't benefit from using JRP on the Narita Express. These remote villages may also be more accessible on non-JR modes; for the first destination mentioned (Ama Hut in Shima, Mie), Kintetsu seems to be faster than JR.

Also, Asian tourists like the Korean and Chinese influencers named in the article can fly directly KIX, NGO, FUK, CTS, etc. or ferry from Busan, so JRP might be an even worse deal for repeats from those countries.

If your object is to visit a city other than those wouldn't you make that your destination airport?

Generally speaking, in Japan flying into a rural airport is strictly inferior to taking the train there. Flight frequencies are low, prices are high, and public transport from the airport to the actual city is typically limited and expensive.

In my experience the flight is almost always cheaper and the train is more the choice for people who want the experience.

Are we talking about different things here? Of course the plane is cheaper for heavily competed trunk routes like Tokyo to Fukuoka or Sapporo, but I'm referring to all the random small airports that are lucky to get a single daily flight to Tokyo: Noto, Aomori, Yamagata, Kushiro, etc.

I guess it depends on the city, but I live within walking distance of Misawa airport, and in our case the airplane ticket is a bit cheaper than the Shinkansen. We only get three flights a day though.

There's nothing "secret" about this.

Most countries with any tourism business (real or hoped-for) do this. Even Saudi Arabia.

In the last year or so I have seen so many travel ads and promotions to visit Saudi Arabia. I don't think I'd ever go there but I'm pretty sure I know a lot of the stuff I would visit.

I hear it's a good place to watch soccer.

There are 10's of football (soccer) fans in Saudi Arabia

10's of millions? It's the only thing playing in coffee shops and the only thing people talk about

A few amazing players surrounded by scrubs

The impression I get from seeing the tourism pitches Gulf states do is that they're trying to sell me on Las Vegas, except with less sex or liquor and more unfree labor. Hard to see the appeal.

>There's nothing "secret" about this.

It's also not a weapon. I dislike clickbait hyperboles like that in titles.

Yeah this is literally what “influencers” are… they are just freelance salespeople/marketers acting as the outsourced sales and marketing arm for corporations and countries.

That is just normal marketing.

Also "37,000 views on YouTube" mentioned in the article sounds pathetic.

What is the RoI here?

Lately Japan just does not seem like it used to be. The flood of gaijins have totally turned off the public as wages stagnate while inflation drives cost of goods. Just looking at some of the subreddits around living in Japan, the desperation is obvious as gaijins also feel the inflationary pressure.

10 years ago you it would've been impossible to find rude staff but now it becomes routine as the average Japanese workers patience has been pushed to teh brink. Its not as bad as Canada but definitely a shock to see how crappy tourist experience has gotten in Japan.

ymmv

>Just looking at some of the subreddits around living in Japan, the desperation is obvious as gaijins also feel the inflationary pressure.

Please take anything you see on the Japan-related subreddits with a container ship full of salt. The people who hang out on there are even worse than the Americans you'll see on NextDoor. Half of them seem to absolutely hate their life in Japan and are obviously bitter about their life choices, and most of the rest are just plain crazy. /r/japanlife is the absolute worst; I recommend staying far away from there.

>10 years ago you it would've been impossible to find rude staff but now it becomes routine as the average Japanese workers patience has been pushed to teh brink. Its not as bad as Canada but definitely a shock to see how crappy tourist experience has gotten in Japan.

Maybe you're only visiting restaurants in the tourist-filled parts of town, but I live in Tokyo and I haven't had any problems with rude staff (yet). Honestly, I still feel like I'm living in some kind of bubble, because the stuff I read on the news about happenings in the US and other western countries, even in daily life (like restaurant staff), and what I hear from my family in the US, is SO incongruent with my life in Tokyo. It's true that prices have gone up for many things, but other than that, life here is peaceful and good.

In general most of what you read anywhere is from either rabid fans or rabid complainers.

Nobody else really bothers to even think about talking about whatever it is online. Always important to remember.

Yeah crime has definitely worsened in London especially in my local area palpably in the time I've been in Singapore meanwhile over here things have gotten more expensive but we don't have violence on the streets. I didn't realise how much I value feeling safe until I left

> Please take anything you see on the Japan-related subreddits with a container ship full of salt. The people who hang out on there are even worse than the Americans you'll see on NextDoor. Half of them seem to absolutely hate their life in Japan and are obviously bitter about their life choices, and most of the rest are just plain crazy. /r/japanlife is the absolute worst; I recommend staying far away from there.

I think it's pretty easy to start out doing English teaching or whatever and before you know it you've been out of school 5 or 10 years and have basically the same level of earning power and marketable skills as any generic new grad, so it's easy to see how people would end up feeling trapped

yeah i always feel like these subreddits are off like its an echo chamber for jaded gaijins who can't handle seeing happy gaijins

glad to hear so many ppl having a complete opposite time

Seemed fine to me, didn't get racist vibes from anyone, most of the Japanese I meet here in Canada seem to be enjoying it, but cost of living is definitely a concern in both places

the rude workers are usually not japanese

Just traveled there and had zero bad experiences!! Kyoto maybe an exception for obvious reason given the swell of tourism they face these days and how un-polite the average tourist can be sadly.

Kyoto people also have a reputation for being a bit snobby and closed minded, even for Japanese standards, I would not take their complaints too seriously.

I live here and don't have this experience at all. I rarely get bad service, and effectively never get rude service.

Maybe this is a difference in the places we're going. I avoid most tourist areas, and also tend to avoid restaurants that are for tourists. Even with that, I'd be surprised, because tourist places are that way because they cater to tourists, and why would you be rude to the people you're targeting?

Are you maybe expecting that people feel this way and projecting these thoughts onto them?

It's worth noting that tourism levels are still lower than pre-covid, so again, it would be a bit surprising that people would be at their boiling points.

The majority of foreigners on English-language forums like Reddit are Americans stuck paying back their crazy student loans, and for that an Assistant to the Language Teacher income plus the cheapening yen is going to make their lives hell, I don't blame them for being bitter.

Wait are you saying that you think inflation in Japan is due to foreigners?

Hint: its not. Hint: Bank of Japan.

I hope they do their due diligence. There are plenty of examples of influencers behaving badly in the countries they seek to emulate.

i call it post-Johnny Somali Japan

that dude single handedly ruined it for all streamers and content makers in Japan

not to mention the public perception of blacks but foreigners in general have taken a major hit

Hopefully the Thai talked some sense into him.

For the people who aren't aware: This guy went around harassing people on the subway saying Hiroshima, Nagasaki in a taunting way. This was some of his content. Eventually he got picked up by the police.

There are posts on Reddit claiming he resurfaced in Israel and got the shit kicked out of him there. Some people never learn.

he was bragging about how he was going to come to south korea and claiming he was Yamaguchigumi

local yakuzas threatened him on X and he changed his tune went to Israel smh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQpwl2FQREE

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