Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses
craigmod.com
craigmod.com
One cafe in Tokyo is asking customers to leave negative reviews on Google and Trip Advisor to prevent over exposure (it mostly works but made me curious enough to visit).
Another specific $10 Michelin guide ramen restaurant only lets you order from a vending machine outside using a payment method you can’t access as a foreigner (one needs a physical JCB card or QUICPay - EPOS/Suica/Pasmo/Cash etc wouldn’t work).
A matcha place I like only lets you order from the real menu after you’ve unlocked enough visits from a punch card.
A resort slightly off but near the beaten path markets itself as an onsen but that’s maybe 4% of the amenities. That said, they’re serious about “no entry” if you have tattoos.
And a few more of the seedier bars just have the (time honored) “no foreigners” sign out front.
I'm of mixed minds. I really miss the days when it was possible to be welcomed pretty much anywhere as a foreigner and have almost universal expectations of high quality, scam-free experiences, but those days are pretty much gone now. Foreigners are lining up for mediocre tourist traps because of something they saw on TikTok or Instagram, and there are business people who are willing to take advantage of that fact.
It's also really difficult to serve your local clientele when tourists "discover" your establishment. I have a friend with a restaurant that has become known amongst foreign tourists, and it's nearly impossible for the locals in the neighborhood to visit now. I was talking about it with him a month or so back, and while he seemed happy to have the money -- and therefore unwilling to change the situation -- he also interacted with the tourists in a completely different way. He had a back-channel reservation mechanism for locals and people he knows, but it still requires advance planning for a place that used to be a casual, walk-in experience.
you can still have that. I'm a fulltime traveller. the key is to stay in a place longer. I usually stay in a country for at least a month. that gives you time to meet and actually get to know locals. thats how you get invited to the really cool spots and get a view the daytripppers and resort goers don't get.
... if you're a full-time traveler that can afford to stay for months at a time. For the rest (the vast majority) of us, the GP comment is what we get.
That said, even for short-term tourists, Japan used to be kind of a miracle in terms of the quality and service you would get for the money. I know it sounds like hipster whining, but that time is in the past.
[1] My snobby hot-take is that if you can't travel this way you shouldn't do recreational international travel at all, unless it's to go to a luxury hotel and sit on a beach or something packaged like that. But I realize that this will not be a popular opinion.
Just being there puts you in economic competition with the locals. You can spend more on everything than everyone else and that raises their costs too. Especially housing and food. Those fancy resorts take all the prime real estate and Airbnb means locals have to compete with the tourist rental prices.
And there is more and more people traveling all the time so some areas are just overloaded -- as in the article here.
Everyone thinks that they are being more respectful than average as a tourist, but the hard truth is that the best thing you can do for these places is to not be there at all.
In general we have the ability to expand the amount of available housing/hotels/etc. to meet increased demand. It’s not a zero sum game.
This is a very bleak misanthropic view that isn't true. It's possible to be a force for good. To form a symbiosis where each side benefits from the other. If you see a native resident, do you think he is perfectly pure, content and happy? Or does he have his troubles and issues. How can you help him? Entertain? Teach? Trade?
You don't need to go to the Gold Coast: the entire country is surrounded by water ("girt by sea" is in our national anthem), most of it has great beaches, and you're legally allowed to be on any of those beaches up to the high water mark! The 12 Apostles are cool, sort of, but they're surrounded by beautiful coastline and rainforest filled with waterfalls which a big chunk of international tourists drive through without stopping longer than a toilet and coffee break. The Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House are neat and they aren't too busy, but they're also just a bridge and a big building. Uluru is big and impressive, but it's next to the far more interesting Bungle Bungles which get a tenth of the visitors each year, and the entire centre of Australia is scattered with gorges and craters and rock formations.
Go somewhere other than the top places! The best thing you can do for the locals struggling with house prices on the Gold Coast is to save your own money, skip the queues, and go literally anywhere else along the coast in NSW or QLD. Australia has the same population density as Idaho. We can absorb an effectively unlimited number of tourists as long as they ramp up slowly and spread themselves out. It's easy to be an ethical non-disruptive tourist if you just ignore tiktok and don't treat other countries like bingo cards.
I think this is definitely not true.
And I think oversaturation generally happens because most people don't think that, or think about it at all. They have a checklist of spots to hit, photos to take, things to eat, and they follow it. They'll put up with huge lines, crazy prices, etc. Overcharging isn't terrible for everyone local, of course, but the crowding certainly changes a place. Often not better for most locals.
If you're trying to be respectful I think that rules out following those huge crowds usually. Like, seeing the Mona Lisa is usually a shitty experience, but at least its in a controlled environment. Visiting a trendy vacation spot like Barcelona, on the other hand, is hitting the whole town and frankly ... maybe not that interesting or novel. There are other places out there, many not even that far away from the hotspots. Though you also need to rein in any instinct to show off any other finds or places online, let the local place you enjoyed become deluged.
And this article is about Japan, a freaking island where the government has a total control over how many people are getting in...
There are certainly places where it is clearer cut. Hawaii and Barcelona come to mind.
You can hire a full time tour guide using your wealth disparity. Providing a real job to someone with a real schedule and predictable income.
Stay at home? Do not take vacations? Never learn anything about the outside world that's not mediated by books or the internet?
Because I can tell you not even your own country (whatever that is) is spared from this. You cannot travel within your country without causing this, either.
People just quietly pretend this isn't the case, probably so they don't feel guilty about it. Or maybe they just never put 2 and 2 together.
How long ago was that? It was certainly true in fairly large portions of the world, but there are plenty of places where, for as long as I can remember, you could pretty much expect to be scammed regularly. In many cases those scams would be for trivial (to visitors from wealthy countries) amounts of money, but it nonetheless often seemed like a large fraction of local economies would be driven by scamming tourists.
I think that the real recent change is that the “beaten path” of touristy areas has gotten larger.
To be clear: "scamming" is still thankfully uncommon in Japan. Getting ripped off in the tourist-trap way is the new development.
I don't know when it started exactly, but I lived there around a decade ago and it was rare then. The prices around tourist spots would always be elevated and world heritage sites often had a line of crappy souvenir shops, but you didn't see the same kind of fake "wagyu" and the like that you see everywhere today.
So, much like every restaurant that becomes popular, anywhere in the world?
No, but thanks for the spot-on imitation of an entitled foreign visitor. The insinuation that somehow it's the local people's fault that they don't want their quaint neighborhood restaurants to become McDonald's is indeed part of the problem.
Many restaurants in Japan (my friend's included) are quite obviously one-man, standing-room only operations. They weren't designed or intended to accommodate big groups of people, pulling huge rolling suitcases, ordering off menu, getting offended when the proprietor doesn't offer vegan/gluten free/snowflake options, and tons of other nonsense that goes along with serving tourist hordes.
I realize that you can't un-make the baby, and that Japan's government asked for this, but a lot of locals are still upset about this kind of stuff and I have empathy. Tourism inevitably turns anything authentic into a high-volume, Epcot-center version of itself. That might be fine if you're visiting, but it sucks if you live there.
I don't think they're gone though? I just got back from a trip to Japan and I was very pleased to find these experiences were still the norm outside the most heavily touristed areas. Even in big cities. Have been to Colombia twice in the past two years and it was the same way.
I would like to think there is somewhere in the United States, maybe in the Midwest, or West Virginia, there has to be someplace where there are decent hard-working Americans, who are not trying to scam each other.
My family is from the "decent hard-working" part of mid-America and I am the only one without a felony so whenever one of my relatives dies, I get their guns. It used to be the crime of choice was check fraud but now it's simple burglary and drugs.
I as a non-gang, non-dealing, tall middle aged white dude am safer in Baltimore than I am at the local gas station full of tweakers in "real" America.
West Virginia has the highest, by a lot, percentage of people on social security disability because their state doesn't have good welfare benefits. All of the decent folk figured out how to scam the government out of disability payments by lying about back and stomach pain.
In Wyoming County West Virginia >33% of all adults aged 18-64 are on disability. These aren't broken down coal miners they are normal, healthy, unemployed people.
My county? 6%.
The only parts of America where people aren't trying to scam each other are uninhabited.
Nobody will try to charge you the tourist rate because there isn’t one. There may be scammers and shady merchants operating in town but you will not be their primary target.
I fell in love with that part of Texas and the people. My wife and I were married in Marathon which is in a ~75 mile radius of the towns i listed above
if you arent somewhere to mutually enjoy something, they're there to sell something
Most of the ticket vending machines do take cash, but if they wanted to eliminate tourists then that would be an easy change to make.
I do not understand why one would even look at tourist reviews for "authentic Japanese jalapeños" or whatever on Gmaps. But people do so what do I know.
I have no idea if it’s still there, but I thought it was a super clever way of doing things.
What's so hard to believe about that? Lots of places in the Netherlands don't accept cash (probably out of convenience).
This is not uncommon in Japan, in general. Usually it's more of an anti-Yakuza/riffraff regulation than an anti-foreigner one. It just so happens to kill two birds with one stone, in some cases.
I know far too many non-Japanese-asian people who get held to the standards applied to Japanese people - not even over tattoos, but things like language, cultural understandings, etc. The aspect of this with white people is where the infamous "gaijin smash" came from.
Those have existed long before tourism to Japan became common. Those signs were there when the vast majority of foreigners in Japan were English teachers and soldiers. Many tabehodai (all-you-can-eat) and most nomihodai (all-you-can-drink) places had them.
I think this is for economic/profit reasons.
I am not a strong drinker at all but I can drink 4-5 [X] sour but my Japanese friends were already well intoxicated with 1 or 2 beers...
If you tell a male [insert western country] university student on holiday that it's "all you can drink for $20" there's going to be bodies.
It's such a contrast to USA, where I doubt that such a thing would even be legal. And also the bit about no tattoos. That's lawsuit city.
Aren't private businesses in the US allowed to deny access to their premises for any reasons? Seems like a weird thing to get sued over, I think in most places if you own the local, you get to decide who goes there, unless it's a place for government or similar.
A.k.a. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Miami ... take your pick.
Litigation, the great all-American pastime.
The sign itself is probably protected speech.
As for the policy, it is probably also legal here. Private businesses have broad rights to refuse individual customers without stating a reason.
Fabricating a legitimate business reason to deny service to a particular group of customers is usually trivial, as well. Proving it was fabricated for discriminatory reasons can be difficult.
That's nothing unusual in Japan, even Japanese people in Japan can't join a gym or get car insurance if they've got tattoos. They're serious about that stuff for a reason.
I just wore sleeves over them and although less comfortable than my normal gym attire it was fine.
I was denied access to an Onsen because I honestly forgot about the tattoo thing for a while but was able to find one that was tattoo friendly. They were not mean or anything they just informed me it was policy. Completely understandable given the history.
My tattoos are very noticeable though. Like you would never miss large forearm tattoos, so it's probably hard for them to overlook for them and let it slide even for a foreigner
eh? there's a stripping-down room in insurance offices?
do you have to submit nudes if you're buying insurance online?
Edit: The red text at the bottom says: この日本語が読める方は、 ご入店くださいませ = "if you can read this Japanese text, please come in"
Edit 2: just the original reddit post link then
However this is easily "beaten" by using circle to search -> translate on your smart phone.
It's funny how everybody seems totally cool with this in Japan (or other Asian countries) but all hell breaks lose if somebody pulls that off in Europe. Actually this is just the news currently as a public swimming facility in Switzerland recently banned foreigners due to problems with visitors from France. The guests now seem super happy but it has been in he news already for a few days. In Germany you can even sue in such a case as we have anti-discrimination laws.
But plenty of places were super warm and friendly after the initial apprehension if you speak Japanese and read some kanji. Worth the effort!
I think this is a misconception spread by people who get mad about being laughed at by locals, including kids, and have insisted on being called gaikukojin (foreign-country person) instead over the last 20-30 years.
The reason I say so is that Japanese is full of abbreviated words like this; gaijins literal meaning is 'outside person' and the koku part is redundant. You see such abbreviations in the written language too. For example 友人 (yuujin) and 友達 (tomodachi) both mean 'friend' but as you can see the latter kanji is a lot more work to write as well to say.
The real reason (in my view) is that this word 外人 has the same pronunciation as 害人 and the same slang meaning, but 害 carries an implication of harm or injury. Japanese has a small number of sounds compared to other languages so homophony abounds and double meanings like this are very common, both for humorous effect or for making veiled negative comments.
Switching a character around is a normal Japanese way of dealing with meaning clashes. For example 和 (wa) means harmony, but also refers to Japan: 和食 (washoku) is Japanese food, 和服 (wafuku) is Japanese clothing etc. etc.. This word is ancient, going back ~1800 years to when Chinese & Korean explorers first had contact with Japan and called it the 'Kingdom of Wa'. However the Chinese used the character 倭 (also wa) which means distant, but can also mean dwarf (as in stature) or submissive. The Japanese used the same character for about 500 years but eventually decided they found the double meaning offensive and switched to 和. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wa_(name_of_Japan) is a great deep dive into this if you're interested in etymology.
I get why some people take umbrage at the use of words like gaijin, but to my mind if you don't like such things you don't really like the language, and if you make an issue out of it people will just find more subtle ways to express their negative (and possibly escalated) sentiments and might start to view you as 害虫.
And I also have the experience of people really appreciating it if you actually speak and read Japanese. Which makes sense, I can easily imagine it being a relief to find that you can just speak with someone normally instead of having to struggle with this absolutely bonkers weird language that one may be only vaguely familiar with.
I can imagine that people in, say, the United States wouldn't be very happy if I went around and only spoke Dutch.
100%. You don't even need to know that much. Even if you have to switch to English, showing respect by demonstrating some effort to learn the local language and culture goes a long way.
I think this depends on tone. It is a literal translation, but I don't think you have to call someone non-human for it to be rude.
> I can imagine that people in, say, the United States wouldn't be very happy if I went around and only spoke Dutch.
We do have a large amount of people (and an increasing number of businesses) who think it's fine to only speak Spanish.
What's the "fake menu" you have to order from before you unlock the real one? Or do you just have to swing by but aren't allowed to order anything? Compared to the others, it's hard to think of how this would necessarily help the business, aside from possibly disincentivizing people who are uncaring enough that their traffic would be bad but still care enough that they won't go there if they can't order something specific.
* store only for patrons, but welcome if you come with patron.
* anyone welcome but if you're only coming once (tourist etc), please don't (destroy the vibe).
For obvious reasons foreign tourist couldn't get this so many places just put up a "no foreigner" sign. You'll still see local foreigner sometimes hang around those places though
I did this living there from ~2009 - ~2016. Wasn't an issue in my visits afterwards either, at least up until the COVID years.
I will say that when I go back each year (1x/2x per) post COVID, I've seen more of them trying to be firm on it though - presumably due to the tourism influx.
It must be quite the character who has the discipline and drive to get a Michelin star and takes pleasure in putting giant roadblocks in front of traveling foodies. Reminds me of this elderly couple who despised kids and ran a successful toy store.
Eh, even some non "seedy" ones have it. It's common enough.
I don't know what can be done about it though. Japan's economy is in trouble, and the tourist money helps and hurts at the same time. It creates tax revenue, yet inflates prices for locals. Japan's stumbling economy is a factor in itself of the tourism influx due to the weak yen.
In the next few decades I fear Japan is going to go through a difficult period of cultural erosion. It needs foreign workers and at the rate they'll be entering, they won't integrate to the level that the Japanese people want.
I'd like to think I'm one of the "15%" that the article describes - I go to great lengths to integrate despite not speaking a lot of Japanese. But deep down I know that I don't belong here, and that Japan would prefer to be a homogenous society without expats like me. And I hold no hard feelings toward them for that.
I think this is an important point that I am struggling to articulate. I actually like the fact that they "prefer to do things their way". When I was traveling there, it is clear that I stand out from my behavior. We might share the same skin color but I don't speak the language nor have the mannerism.
I don't fit, they don't know how to deal with me and that is fine. In fact, I would prefer it to be that way. I prefer Japan to be Japan. Of course there are societal issues that needs to be fixed but those are orthogonal to what I am talking about.
However, American culture has moved on (a lot) from that though. For several generations, it has been described as a "melting pot" or understood through the lens of The New Colossus mounted on the Statue of Liberty.
Do not pretend like liberals were on a different page than conservatives on that issue before the election. Support for Israel was happening under Biden and would have continued under Harris; Trump's the one who did a bait-and-switch with pretending he'd be more neutral until he got in. And conservatives have been called antisemitic by liberals far more than the reverse.
> American culture is immigrant centric.
What does this mean? Because to me, it means we don't have a culture and never will have one. What does immigrant-centric mean to people who are born not immigrants, besides getting out of the way for the next generation on its way in?
"Enrichment" is a buzzword for the insulated elite happy that they have new things on their lunch menu, somehow ignoring all the negatives that come with it.
If you establish a vast trading empire, and tell the often surprised new inhabitants of it that the empire requires their spices/ silks/ slaves, can you really be surprised that the more enterprising and adventurous colonised people gravitate toward the point of origin? Is it some sort of mystery that there should be more people from Algeria and Congo in France, or why there are so many Indonesian people in the Netherlands?
I feel a similar perplexity about many people in the USA making loud complaints about cultural adulteration despite a good quarter of the land having previously been part of Mexico and this being reflected in most of the place names (to take but one example). Some commentators object with an absolute straight face to hearing so many people speaking Spanish in cities with names like Los Angeles.
And interestingly, the people who utter this ideology are usually from the natives - because fundamentally it's a type of narcissism - a kind of "I'll show you" or "I like you being hurt" that feels pleasurable or gives a sense of superiority.
Can't imagine this ever being tolerated within China and Russia though, perhaps that's why they're the current bogeymen.
Do you dare leave your bike outside unlocked in these cities?
Of course, being Japan, they also have a compulsory bike registration scheme and police can and do (not-so-)randomly stop people on the street to check that they're not riding stolen bikes.
I honestly think the original culture is pretty much extinct. Very, very few of the incoming generation even desire to uphold and rekindle that culture. In fact, it is despised.
The rest is just nostalgia, and that's fine. But realistically, a big piece of Japanese culture will be well preserved in the new culture that will emerge. As it is, we've stopped lamenting the arrival of Buddhist influence on the island, so too will other immigration influences.
some things are more important than just making line go up
Eventually they may even come to view the westerner, evidenced by their minds in such a shocking condition, as a fundamentally grotesque thing, and go full closed-country again - especially after their power wanes. Certainly one case would be more beautiful than the other!
To hell with these multinational corporations that erect their sterile altars to unbridled capitalism, resulting in the mass homogenization of culture. A culture that caters to "everyone" caters to no one.
Ultimately, it's the same underlying xenophobia and racism you find everywhere else. It's easier for people to like people who are like them and harder for them to like people who are not like them.
In my opinion, people don't talk about how well America integrates other cultures enough. It's one of our defining strengths, even still.
>Ultimately, it's the same underlying xenophobia and racism you find everywhere else. It's easier for people to like people who are like them and harder for them to like people who are not like them.
Yes and this is completely normal human behavior, and in my opinion should not be completely outright demonized. I suspect one of the many reasons why europe is the way it is today in regards to this topic, is because we have repressed these natural tribal tendencies. And just to stir the pot; I wonder how welcoming and nice many of the e.g. majority muslim countries would to the non-arabs & non-muslims if they were to mass migrate to said countries. I think they would very much exercise and impose their 'xenophobia' upon these foreigners in certainly more tougher ways.
But isn't that why Japan ended up like this? Every country needs either immigration or babies, and Japan chose option C: neither. And now the decision has been made for them, a very high dose of immigration is required.
It's like ignoring a cavity and eventually needing a root canal.
Xenophobia is simply an unworkable idea, like eugenics and other discredited beliefs. Or at least it needs to be paired with a religion that encourages having kids.
Xenophobia was the default for nearly all of human history and core to nearly all successful societies. How is it unworkable?
At its core it’s the same idea as “trust is earned, not given”.
In an advanced society where the threat is depopulation rather than invasion, xenophobia is harmful unless you can find a way to convince people to have more children than is rational for them to have.
Kyoto was never going to be able to deal with the level of tourism that it's currently struggling with, though. My friends and I refuse to even stop there now - and I tried to get some friends who visited recently to avoid it in favor of some other culturally significant spots, but the TikTok trend seems to be incredibly powerful. I don't know if I have the words to express how that interaction made me feel, but it's definitely weird.
Any tips for somebody looking to visit Japan in the next year or so?
One option if you're looking to avoid Kyoto, but want something that still feels sufficiently old world, is Kanazawa. You can take the Shinkansen from Tokyo to get there; ever since this line was opened it also has its fair share of tourists, but it's way less popular than Kyoto and IMO very nice. Old Samurai town out on the western coast of Japan.
If you want history that's more somber, and you're already visiting Osaka, just take the Shinkansen a bit further down to Hiroshima. The atomic bomb museum there is IMO required viewing for seeing and understanding the impact those events had. The Nagasaki one was even more powerful of an exhibit, but frankly to go to Nagasaki you need to fly (a Shinkansen exists but it's not a fully connected route at this time).
I'm out drinking at the moment so I'm not about to write a novel, but whenever you go to book your stuff you can feel free to email me (should be in my profile) and I'd be happy to help figure things out. People should visit Japan - I don't ever want to gatekeep it; I just think people should avoid chasing the same beaten path. :)
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We tried going off the tourist path a bit, but since we didn't have that much time there, and know no japanese, it isn't super easy to do figure out where to go / what to do.
I am not sure what cultural erosion you speak of. I am sure Japanese culture won't be replaced by a cultural vacuum. Japanese culture has evolved for centuries, both under external influences and because of its internal dynamics.
Many modern beloved Japanese cultural assets were formed in such manner, as noted in this article: https://archive.md/2c1WI
I lived in a successful major tourist region from its inception to maturity. You are incorrect in saying that it creates tax revenue: The Tourism sector generally gets tax breaks and subsidies, so it ends up eating up tax revenue to enrich whatever oligarchic structure or family dominates the landscape. Moreover, in any mild temporary crisi,s it risks collapsing and forces the government to bail it out by spending enormous amounts of money.
Tourism is like a tick that sucks away the productive forces and resources of a country - it diverts both budget (tax breaks, subsidies) and educated manpower away from actual goods and services production, provides sh*t jobs to those employed in tourism, causes inflation and CoL rise across regions and even the entire country. If you want to cripple a country's industrial and technological power, the best thing to do is to push tourism on it.
I get what you're saying, but I also marvel at how completely contrary this is to the "freedom of movement" ethics of the West. I mean, someone who holds this same opinion in Europe or America would be considered a Neo-Nazi.
First, Japan is an island nation, and historically a somewhat isolated one (due to weather patterns rather than distance). Islands are fundamentally different from continents, anthropologically, lexically, strategically.
Second, 'the West' has historically been very expansionist; because of its continental configuration, there have been many, many waves of migration and military conquest, and the development of global navigation and seafaring vessels during the Renaissance made for a centuries-long outward expansion.
Third, this sort of expansionism has being going on in the Asia-Pacific region over even longer timescales and there are very different discourses with many contentious points of view if you include Japanese, Korean, Chinese and other perspectives.
On general anthropology, maybe try JAred Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel or for a more academic take, Azar Gat's War in Human Civilization. For the history of Japan, Mason & Caiger's History of Japan is comprehensive without being a huge study commitment.
Expats can turn into immigrants, but one who "knows deep down they don't belong" is less likely to.
The "small businesses" being swamped are rarely those kinds. They want that extra income but can't really serve it, and often realize that one off selfie tourists just generally have little respect for rules and end up trashing the place,(or the surroundings, not necessarily because bad intent but cultural differences) causing ire from the locals.
Hospitality is already a low margin business, so if you're a small business owner and need to deal with the customers yourself instead of via hired work, why would you want that extra hassle of dealing with annoying foreigners unless it's purely for milking them dry with huge markups for it to be worth it?
I think it is hard to explain to HN crowd whose most would like to run business to make most money possible in shortest time period and would not understand running business that just pays its bills and gets owner ramen profitable unless it is just a point on path to becoming unicorn.
Do you have any self reflection to see why this is a problem for other citizens who aren't making bank from tourism 3 months per year and actually need to work 12 months a year but also have to deal with the issues tourism ads for them: higher rents, higher prices, extra traffic, extra noise at night from your drunken patrons, crowds, pickpockets, scammers, etc?
You arguments is just "over tourism is not a nation/city problem because it's making me rich". You can't make this up. I couldn't be as oblivious about it if I tried.
It sounds like you're a Brit who opened a pub in Spain for other Brits to get sloshed at. Is this wrong?
I'd like our productivity gains to free up people to pursue their weird jazz-coffee bar fantasies and start more businesses. That's a better world to me than the the one OP is trying to get us to retreat to.
There's lots of terrible things about social media but its ability to spread the wealth of attention to small businesses is probably the best thing about it.
Bad tourists? FINE THEM. I realize the Japanese don't like to see their relationships as transactional, but they have foreigners there and managing their behavior via transactions is totally fair to me.
P.S: I know, I know I have recently been to Japan and seen its over-tourism first hand. I also don't know a country better equipped to get a handle on it and gasp scale.
That said, nearly all hospitality owners in Japan I work with now recognize the importance of inbound tourism--critical for a country facing a 30% population decline by 2070. When I started TableCheck ~12 years ago, many places avoided non-Japanese guests--not always from "racism", but often a fear of miscommunication and dissatisfying guests. That mindset is rapidly fading: venues that don't capture inbound guests' revenue simply won't survive.
Happy to answer questions!
In Japan there is a "system" ("kata") for everything, and in addition, there is a concept of hospitality called "omotenashi" which means something like "the host will anticipate the all guest's needs" (you can think "omakase"--meaning "chef chooses"--is a facet of "omotenashi")
To illustrate these concepts: I had two friends visiting from India who were religious vegetarians, they had asked me to book a traditional Japanese restaurant but almost everywhere I called used "dashi" (fish-based soup stock) as a core ingredient. I asked if dashi could be removed, but nearly every restaurant refused as they "didn't think it would taste as good"--I tried to explain my friends really wouldn't know the difference, to no avail--the system is the system, the goal is "omotenashi".
Language tends to be an issue as well, but many restaurants will say "We don't speak English and we don't have well-translated menus, but if you want to try it anyway we'll welcome you." Another example here: Tokyo Disney gives a VIP tour only in Japanese, and you have to pay extra for an English translator. I asked them why they can't just have the English speaker gives the tour; the answer was "Because the tour is in Japanese." The system is the system.
So it's easy to mistake this "omotenashi" insistence to follow the system as "(intentionally) not catering to foreign guests", but it has much more to do with "quality control" like you might find in a Toyota factory.
Are there a handful of close-minded bigots in the Japan, who refuse non-Japanese speakers/non-Japanese people? Sure, there are in any country. You are not likely to encounter them on a trip to Japan--in 17 years living here I really haven't encountered many--and if you do, just take your business elsewhere.
Tourism doesn't help with that. And this decline (if it do happens) will impact the countryside more than the places where most tourists go.
As devil's advocate, do you not see a potential disconnect here between what makes financial sense for your customers and what makes logistical sense for the nation as a whole?
I am sure many of them would be a little upset, but I don't understand how this counts as "hurting" small businesses?
Those people are now providing a service to anonymous tourists, rather than being part of a community.
It's isolating.
If you want to be a members' only club, be a members' only club. I understand concerns with Venice sinking or a tiny train station being overrun with anime fans, but Kyoto is and always will be a popular tourist destination for many reasons.
Just a fashionable way to say you've been there and done that, and that you're above the hoi polloi.
Popular cities, and popular attractions within, are popular for a reason.
Reasons which typically don't include "can sustain infinite visitors"
/this is a joke, don't do this.
Tokyo has more international tourists than Rome and is the third city destination in the world.
https://www.euromonitor.com/press/press-releases/december-20...
Tourists spilling over on less prepared and smaller places is the real issue IMHO. Seeking "authenticity" while not being local/integrated understandingly generates friction at scale.
But seanmcdirmid in a sibling comment is likely correct, and I'm possibly wrong.
Going to Spain on the other hand would be tourism. I don't speak Spanish, it's not a neighbouring country, you arrive in an airport, etc.
If an American or a Chinese person goes to Paris I feel they likely have different motivations and itinerary than a Brit, Belgian, etc who is taking the train possibly only for the day.
It’s 100% social media. It’s the most vapid thing in the entire world. It makes tourist destinations theme parks with zero regards for the locals.
I have lived in Japan since 1983, and my sisters and their husbands recently spent three weeks in Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Osaka, and Tokyo. It was the first visit here for three of them. They’re all in their early 70s and don’t use social media much, so they got most of their ideas for places to go from web searches, which led them to travel blogs and to sites like Tripadvisor.
I tried to steer them away from the areas that I knew would be overcrowded, but with mixed success. I warned them in particular that Kyoto would be packed, but they insisted on taking a day trip there from Osaka anyway. It turned out to be the most unpleasant part of their trip because of the crowds.
As their trip progressed, they focused more on avoiding the crowds, and they gradually started adding more museums to their itinerary. I took them to the Osaka Museum of Housing and Living and the Tokyo National Museum, and on their own they visited the Osaka Museum of History, Yushukan Museum at the Yasukuni Shrine, JCII Camera Museum, and several others. None of them were crowded, and they seemed to enjoy them all.
I was particularly surprised at how empty the Tokyo National Museum was, as forty years ago it was a standard destination for foreign visitors. It still has a great collection, but very few of the thousands of tourists wandering around nearby Ueno that day chose to go there.
That's not to say I'll never go to a museum; I stumbled into a small science and technology museum near the imperial palace gardens, for example. But the bigger a museum is and the more lists it's on, the more I'd assume it's touristy. The Tokyo National Museum being "a standard destination for foreign visitors" is exactly why I'd shy away from it. (Why the general public would follow that trend for museums but not for other tourist destinations, I don't know.)
Saw so many incredible places and was welcomed everywhere with open arms (except a coed day spa that allowed foreigners — that was difficult). When her native uncle and I got drunk at a karaoke bar, we were tolerated as tip-friendly locals.
I greatly-respected the open hostility to foreigners — to protect their culture — and would never travel again without a local guide.
Sorry to hear it's going to shit. What keeps you there?
Here there is the opportunity of a lifetime, and many Japan business are straight out rejecting the money that comes pouring in. Meanwhile Japan economy is the worst it's been in 40-50 years, and virtually every week there's articles about the bleak future. It's too frustrating seeing articles complaining about how business are closing down with no money, and at the same time how these people trying to give them money are being rejected.
Background: living in Japan 5-10 years, I'm from Spain so it's not "in my blood" to think about profit also, but heck it's just too surprising some times.
PS, I'm for reducing tourism overall here actually, I'm just baffled at Japanese rejecting money.
because not everyone cares firstly about money?
the article is quite clear, the woman wanted to open a business to serve her friends and locals
now she can't do that, and is understandably upset
Other cultures have zero qualms about a "foreigner price".
Perhaps they just need better training in how to fleece foreigners without impacting their long term local customers - it's those relationships that are probably their major concern.
I get it if your goal is not necessarily to make as much money as possible and just wanted to create some small, local, "underground" thing. As a small business owner myself, I can think of a few different ways you could accomplish that in spite of massive attention. I mean you can have certain days of the week where you're closed to the general public but patrons with a loyalty card can get in or something. That's just one idea; point is there are solutions.
So I tend to agree with you - this reeks of "we just don't like foreigners. They're ruining our business by being foreign."
My wife and I are about to open our first brick and mortar business and it would be our dream come true to get popular on TikTok and to be a tourist destination. Even though we are a small business in a trendy neighbourhood doing something rather niche that is [hopefully] going to attract a loyal local following.
They also have a vastly different culture with many possible faux-pas that one can make, which all tourists inevitably make, which they hate. I think they are unfair about this however
Foreigners are at least 10% as civilized.
My rule now is when we travel somewhere, we look to see what all the viral places from TikTok, and then we don't go there unless the place holds some incredible cultural significance (ie. The Louvre, Sagrada Família, etc).
What we found is cities are usually filled to the brim with the kind of spots that get "TikTokked" but only a few select places actually go viral and attract all the attention. When you use the "viral places" as a guide of where NOT to go, you end up going down some paths that lead you to some really special experiences with practically no other tourists around.
Honestly, I give those a pass too. I don't want to go to Barcelona and exacerbate the problem of overtourism (same goes for Venice). Paris is doable of course, but there too I wouldn't consider the Louvre right now. Not with its employees holding strikes because of the overcrowding!
It's a big world, and there are plenty of places where I am welcome as a tourist. The experience is better in any case; I hate crowds.
Take a random example: 5 cute coffee shops around Paris, all of them have that Parisian vibe that tourists are looking for but one of them had an influencer walk in and make some content. Now that one shop is all over the internet and tourists are flocking to it, creating huge lines and overwhelming the business, while the other 4 shops sit at roughly the same level of popularity as they did before.
The problem I see isn't that travel is democratized, it's that people are lazy at planning their trips and just go on social media and find these "hot spots" instead of actually doing their homework or heck even a little exploring around the city.
And I get it, planning a trip and actually doing your homework is hard, it's much easier to get on TikTok and have the entire itinerary planned in one afternoon than spending weeks researching spots on your own.
The problem is people are shallow. People are _actively_ seeking the queue. I know because I know people that are like this.
They want to be part of the queue because...I am not sure why. To take a quick picture at a very specific angle to avoid the crowd? To make their followers think they are doing something great? To make them jealous?
It is as if beauty have to be told and highlighted to them. They need a signboard that says "this is pretty, take a picture here!". They are not able to appreciate the minutiae of life.
Of course, I am sounding mighty superior here, but I don't think I am wrong.
All over the US are locations that used to be the place where a people would go for a three day weekend or summer getaway. But now they are ghost towns because the cost of travel and the algorithm have reframed travel as global and not regional.
Like… Niagara Falls used to be “the” honeymoon destination for couples in the northeast. Now it seems like every honeymoon is in a beachy tropical location and the falls have been gutted economically
My favorite line in this article:
> I’ve come to see overtourism as a kind of natural disaster. How can you get angry at the earth for having an earthquake?
> Pour out a cold brew for small shops with giant lines of transient tourists.
> "James told me about another friend who owns a cocktail bar in Kyoto that was TikToked. She had recently stopped by and found him in tears. The only reason he opened the bar, he said, was so locals and friends like her would come. Now, all he had were customers he couldn’t talk to."
One possible interpretation of TFA is that "small shops" only want to allow certain people to enter and not others.
I wonder if some form of private club would be more appropriate.
The main driver seems to be social media, obviously not unique to Japan but is really blatant. Tourists were chasing selfies and videos at iconic locations they’d seen online, rarely venturing beyond those well-known spots. This creates heavy congestion and puts strain on specific neighborhoods and landmarks. In the West, TikTok appears to be the biggest influence; among Chinese tourists, the app Xiaohongshu (Rednote) by plays a similar role. The result is a tourism culture shaped less by genuine interest or curiosity and more by curated photo ops.
Japan faces unique challenges in managing the surge in tourism. Despite the modern and cosmopolitan feel of its cities, the culture remains markedly different: socially conservative and culturally illiberal. Xenophobia and racial bias are not uncommon, and nationalist political voices have increasingly framed tourists as scapegoats for a range of domestic issues. At the same time, the country lacks sufficient infrastructure to support the growing number of visitors. In Kyoto, for example, the city’s bus system is frequently overwhelmed…you could almost argue that separate systems for locals and tourists are needed.
Many tourists also appear unprepared, I admittedly was completely unprepared for the weather. Japan is not an easy place to navigate culturally, and some visitors behave with surprising ignorance or entitlement, especially at temples and shrines. There’s a tendency to treat the country like a kind of Disneyland, an exoticized backdrop for social media content, rather than a living culture with its own rules, rhythms, and expectations. This contributes to growing resentment, particularly in a society where individuals are often viewed in terms of the groups they represent. One tourist’s behavior can easily become a reflection on all.
There’s no easy solution. But it’s clear that both travelers and destinations need to rethink their relationship. Tourism should be approached with more awareness, humility, and a willingness to engage with complexity, not just consume it.
Well said, but definitely not unique to Japan. Sadly, I notice this almost everywhere I go anymore. It's also why you read about someone falling down a cliff or waterfall taking a selfie once or twice a year now.
I don't have any idea what the solution is, but it definitely makes most sights worth seeing less enjoyable now.
I've been to other big touristy hotspots like Rome and Venice, but overtourism in Tokyo/Kyoto was more noticeable to me, perhaps because of the culture (loud groups of tourists entering quiet orderly establishments). I recall in 2019 going to teamLab Tokyo, and there was a large group of Western tourists who had removed their shoes and were lying on the ground in the mirror room.
Oh hey, that was me! Small (internet) world, huh :)
1. The extreme success of Japanese culture via media, specifically abroad. This wasn't just a thing that happened accidentally, it was in some sense planned for decades. See for example the Cool Japan initiative: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Japan
I haven't been to Korea, but I imagine that their tourism numbers have dramatically increased in the last decade due to k-pop, k-dramas, Squid Game, etc. – all of which have been deliberately used to promote the country's culture abroad.
2. Japan is one of the few countries in the world which has navigated modernity without essentially just becoming Westernized. Sure, there are many Western chains and technologies there, but there are also tons of social practices, attitudes, and other things which are very different from the Western world. Or at least they have the appearance of being very different to Western eyes.
This is why there are constantly weird thing in Japan articles on Reddit and HN: it's a place that has managed to navigate its own path in the modern world, rather than just adopting the typical neoliberal homogeneity route.
I'm not sure how Japan is not neoliberal or how this label relates to their culture. I think you are conflating neoliberalism with western pop culture more broadly?
I think a greater proportion of the tourist population are individuals that visit Japan and maybe haven't done enough research, or are just unaware of norms here. Not understanding where to queue, how to order, navigate public transport, what to do at a temple, onsen, etc. This group isn't the 15% of "Best in Class tourists" Craig writes about, but rather the 75% that want to be respectful and don't know any better.
Many locals/expats will see this group and look down in disdain (or lament about them in a blog post...), but why don't more people just ask if they need help? It takes little effort to point someone in the right direction, and if it helps them better understand the country it's a win-win for both tourists and residents alike.
I feel like people love to talk about how considerate Japanese culture is, but don't care to practice it themselves when given the chance.
I was in Japan in 1996 back when a Lonely Planet guidebook was the best authentic reference for western travelers. People decried guidebooks' impact then and now. It's hard to do travel ethically in places that aren't ready for it. This isn't just about Tik Tok. As individuals, we each have to consider our impact culturally, economically, and environmentally.
The solution isn't no tourism, because tourism encourages more global awareness and cross-cultural communication. It also adds to the economy. However, places that are filled with tourists and no locals aren't much fun for most people, local or tourist. It has to be a balance.
I didn't grow up with grandparents, so I have a natural affinity for grandmas. Some of my most cherished moments have been interacting with old ladies in places like Cinque Terre, Portofino, Brussels, Tokyo, NYC etc. I like to walk around the neighborhoods, off the beaten track, and if I get a chance to interact with an old lady, even better.
i wanted to give it a review but it didnt exist on google maps and it was even in a blind spot of Google street view inside Fujisawa
been thinking for a few years how crazy it was that my favorite place on our 10 day trip was completely invisible online in 2024. havent checked back recently but now i hope its still invisible online
I'll come back when the idiots settle down. Meanwhile, my wife wants to see France and Scotland.
And clearly some locals fairly annoyed by it, such that some weren't interested in engaging with a basic level Japanese speaker/listener like me.
I have basic enough speaking/reading/(and less so listening) ability to previously navigate smaller cities with little English speaking, pick a restaurant / order some food, make small talk with taxi drivers, and entertain middle aged locals who don't see a lot of westerners.
I also saw a lot more restaurants that had extremely limited set course only menus for non-japanese speakers, and no patience for someone with non-fluency to try the Japanese menu.
This trip I felt I could not get out of Tokyo fast enough. Parts of it just felt like every other tier 1 global city, and a passive aggressive unwelcomeness that wasn't to the level of Barcelona, but clearly different than 15 years ago.
I left Austin in 2020 and the social-media-powered tourism boom there from 2010 on was insane. In a decade, the entire east side of the city went from low income black and hispanic families to airbnbs and sterile cinder-block condos and bars. Downtown went from old dive bars and music venues in old brick buildings to high-price-but-not-high-quality residential high-rises and FAANG skyscrapers. South Congress went from kitschy shops and local restaurants to glass and steel instagram food factories. All the things I loved about it in the early 2000s are gone.
I feel like this article really lays it on thick to make tourists seem like vapid TikTokers. I think the reality is more nuanced. We can't pretend that every person in the world has the same upbringing, morals, and values. There are people in the US who park their grocery cart in the middle of the aisle, and I have had plenty of tourists from other countries who just stop as soon as they enter a room and gum up the whole business. But plenty of tourists DON'T do this, and plenty of locals ALSO DO THIS. 85% of tourists are not stopping the middle of roads for selfies constantly.
And the other parts feel like gatekeeping. Oh, you only get a few days off a year and can only afford cheap accommodations? You are contributing to the death of small business and the enshittification of our shining cities. If you can't afford to spend more time in fewer places, further off the beaten path (sometimes costing more/having fewer affordable options) then you are a bad traveler. Why do I have to visit locations I have never heard about in order to be considered good? How do I even find them if I can only be in a location for a short time?
It just feels like a lose lose situation as a traveler. I read about the Roman Empire, I've seen pictures of the Italian cathedrals, I've watched documentaries about Pompeii, and I've drank Tuscan wine, so I should... go visit some small town for 2 weeks with very little tourist presence, and no one speaks my language? I'm not allowed to enjoy the cultural monuments of these countries?
Feels like the only winning move is not to play.
Really, it seems to me like this essay is more about turning up your nose that some people are not enjoying Japan the "right" way.
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/ivan-bunin/short-fiction/s...
You can just ban those karts! It's not tourists fault that you haven't.
I went to Japan in 2019, before the pandemic, the previous peak and not far off the current numbers of tourists.
Maybe I went at a quiet time, but white people were as rare as hens teeth. There are 37 million a year. Australia has 7 million and Sydney is a lot smaller than Tokyo. There's way more Japanese tourists in Japan than foreigners, every tourist trap I saw was jam packed with locals.
I think it's all just a tiny handful of small places that are tiktok famous. This is not a Japan problem, it's a problem for a single conbini near Fuji and a couple of bars.
There's also a bunch of social media outrage over a handful of rude tourists. This is not a problem with Japan, it's a made-up problem on social media.
Go to the Vatican or Bali if you want to see a tourist problem.
Show me a picture of Americans overrunning Ueno Park or Disney and I'll change my mind, but I've never seen a picture of a large number of foreign tourists in Japan, just a few tourists being annoying, with almost everyone around them being Japanese.
That may be true in Manhattan, but Japan has amazing, lovable chains. The fact that you are never far from a 7-Eleven, Family Mart, Coco Ichibanya, or Ichiran (and they are often open late if not 24 hours) is one of my favorite parts of Japan.
I can't blame them really, I've been kind of disgusted by the behavior of tourists I've seen in some places to the point where I think I won't travel much to major cities any more. What happened to trying to blend in?
I have no idea what the fascination with Japan, I must have missed something.
There are many low(ish) crime, polite, picturesque destinations, rich in art, culture, and history, but Kazakhstan never exported anime.