Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses

by speckx • 1 year ago

244 469 1 year ago

tonyhart7• 1 year ago

they suffering from success

4fterd4rk• 1 year ago

It's like The Bear. Ohhhhh no I've opened a restaurant and now there are customers aaaaahhhhh this is horrible ahhhhhhhh

FirmwareBurner3• 1 year ago

Anyone who's ever worked in customer support will tell you that dealing with customer regularly sucks balls, even worse if they're foreign and don't know the local language, customs and etiquette so they annoy you and your local patrons while thinking they're entitled to because "we spend money here and support your economy", or even more worse if they're foreign and also intoxicated or acting up for the camera (social media streamers).

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?

anonzzzies3• 1 year ago

I am in Spain (where people, imho wrongfully, think tourism is ruining everything) and I dont see the issue; my wife and myself make enough in the summer to not have anything to do the rest of the year. I have IT businesses which I scale back to run the pub in summer for 3 month. I don't really care about whatever they do as long as it is not fighting: the more drunk and loud they are, especially guys with girls, the more they will just basically order anything of whatever price. And many of them. And yeah, some drinks and food locals would never ever buy so we mark them up 10x. Do not see an issue with that: it is not hidden and locals dont pay less for the same product: it is on the menu, everyone can see it, it's just not popular while for some groups of foreigners it's the first they ask. Welcome please!

luckylion• 1 year ago

Which is why it's better to not have any customers. And not make any money, because dealing with taxes sucks balls, too. Best, really, is not to be alive, because otherwise you'll need to deal with illness, hunger, sadness and stuff.

sunaookami2• 1 year ago

Way to miss the point. Most foreigners in other countries can't behave.

anonzzzies3• 1 year ago

Well it is a job innit? Most my well paid CTOs and tech contacts I meet cannot behave either. They always have to be rude that I am just a small fish, misspell my name every time to be funny or lazy or whatnot etc. I don't care, pay the bill within 14 days, cheers.

guywithahat• 1 year ago

Yeah that was sort of the vibe I got too. I understand the point of the article, that regular customers are a nicer customer base than tourists, but it sort of has a pretentious "most tourists aren't worth of Japan" hypothesis to the article which feels silly once you think about it in a broader, economic scope

vachina• 1 year ago

I guess it depends on the local culture. Japanese relationships are probably a lot less transactional but more “knowing your customers”.

pj_mukh3• 1 year ago

Yea this was major de-growther vibes to me. A couple of small businesses getting swamped just means you don't have enough small businesses. It's true that generally there aren't enough small businesses.

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.

EasyMark2• 1 year ago

I kind of assumed "tourists are crowding me out of my favorite spaces so this must be true everywhere" which is a lot easier to assume than prove.

vagrantJin• 1 year ago

Fascinating.

I have no idea what the fascination with Japan, I must have missed something.

sorcerer-mar3• 1 year ago

Nah you're probably just cooler than everyone else

onlypassingthru2• 1 year ago

A beautiful set of volcanic islands with extremely polite natives, rich in art, culture and history and practically zero crime is not for everyone.

missedthecue3• 1 year ago

Very successful cultural exports in the 1980s, 90s, and early 2000s. Now the kids who grew up in that era are young adults and have some money.

There are many low(ish) crime, polite, picturesque destinations, rich in art, culture, and history, but Kazakhstan never exported anime.

onlypassingthru2• 1 year ago

It's no anime, but who doesn't think of Kazakhstan every time they bite an apple?

CalRobert5• 1 year ago

Maybe travel is just too cheap and easy? I like the democratisation of globe trotting that has happened but it certainly has had negative consequences

beezlewax• 1 year ago

Yes! Let's make it only for the rich or better yet, why not just the oligarchs?

ecshafer• 1 year ago

Is the pollution and co2 production worth it so more people can take photos in front of things? Maybe it is, maybe it isnt.

simgt• 1 year ago

Or also for the "middle" class but as an expensive treat that would have been chosen over something else, like it used to be. After all the environmental cost of a 20€ EasyJet ticket isn't nothing.

CalRobert5• 1 year ago

That’s a fair counter point, but I’m just saying that it did have negative consequences and we might want to consider it. It’s kinda crazy you can sometimes fly 6000 km for less than a few round trip train tickets between London and Edinburgh.

I wonder if Americans’ pitifully short vacation allowance paired with high incomes is an issue. If you’re going to Japan for a week you’re likely to only hit a few top attractions, I imagine.

anovikov2• 1 year ago

Well, problem here is that airlines are under control of national regulatory agencies while flying internationally. Sure, a mandate of say, drastically improving comfort levels by making something like an old-style business class seat (38" pitch recliner, 4 abreast in a narrowbody) the absolute allowed minimum - could work: it will make passengers happier, reduce air rage, and lift prices to the level that somewhat curbs overtourism. But it's impossible to introduce because if one nation does so it will simply make their airlines uncompetitive abroad.

armada651• 1 year ago

How far do you want to take that? The oligarchs can fly back and forth to Japan every week, should the air fare be so cheap that everyone can do that?

parpfish3• 1 year ago

I think the more interesting story here wouldn’t be the “over tourism” of the globally desirable internet-famous locations— It’s all the little regional resort towns and tourism destinations that are now ignored.

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

CalRobert5• 1 year ago

I understand this is what happened to UK beach towns when flying to Spain got cheap

harimau7774• 1 year ago

A lot of those tiny locations all over the US are in red states. Lots of people aren't going to want to go to locations where public infrastructure has been hollowed out and discrimination is legal.

tartoran2• 1 year ago

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.

I find that local travelling within the US is often more expensive for the quality they offer and travelling outside the US may cost the same but give you a better experience, or at least novel.

_fat_santa2• 1 year ago

IMO it's not that travel is to cheap, it's that social media has created "hot spots" around the globe.

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.

steveBK1234• 1 year ago

Yeah I argue with my wife about this. She lives her lists, and trawls her social media feeds for stuff.

I prefer to have a loose agenda of which neighborhoods are interesting, pick one and wander it for an afternoon. Odds are we will find lots of interesting things.

We usually meet in the middle and do a mix. More and more she admits in retrospect to having stressed herself out with building and following an agenda.

anon-39883• 1 year ago

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.

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.

dumbledoren3• 1 year ago

'Globe trotting' has been 'democraticized' only for the top income earners from the high-income countries. The rest of the world is not able to globe trot. Combined with digital nomadism, golden visas et al, this 'democratization' is a new form of colonization in which the high CoL countries' people can literally buy out poorer countries' most desirable regions or set themselves up as an aristocratic elite on top of the locals.

GuB-42• 1 year ago

It used to be the case, now the majority of the people in high-income countries and the high earners of medium-income countries can globe trot, it is a massive increase.

As for the "colonial" aspect, Japan is not exactly a poor country. It is, in fact, a rather expensive destination (a bit less now because the Yen is cheap) and you will certainly not be seen as an aristocratic elite. You will be respected as a guest because that's how Japan works, but there is a line and it will become very clear if you ever attempt to cross it.

I think that "colonial style" tourism is on the decline, simply because the world is developing and what used to be poor countries now do very well by themselves. They will still accept your money though.

sherburt3• 1 year ago

Yeah travel should be a privilege reserved for the ultra rich so the lower classes can focus on working until their body is used up and then they can crawl in a hole and die.

arh5451• 1 year ago

I'll agree certain locations are getting "instagram famous" and really ruining it for the locals, but I don't think they are worse off because of it. Just let people flock to the one picture spot, they did it before social media, and now there are just more of them, nothing new here.

lbreakjai2• 1 year ago

If anything, the tourists queuing to buy the latest novelty doughnut are not taking up space somewhere else.

refactor_master2• 1 year ago

“If you can’t afford to spend a month touring Tōhoku you shouldn’t be traveling”.

johngossman3• 1 year ago

Another is the numeric ratings on reviews on various restaurants and shops. The top scored places are often overwhelmed. An AirBNB operator (in the US) told me she much prefers one of the two bakeries near her, but her guests go to the other one because "it had a better Yelp rating." It was 4.5 vs 4.4 aka random.

paulgerhardt• 1 year ago

Missed opportunity to talk about the locals creative responses to this.

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.

wichert• 1 year ago

Vending machines outside is pretty much the standard for ramen restaurants. Most of them will take passmo/suica, which most foreigners are also likely to have since it is also used for all public transport.

tanjtanjtanj• 1 year ago

I’ve been to this restaurant. They take cash as payment so I don’t think they are trying to dissuade tourists. Also, just a short few years ago I would say less than 10% of restaurants took any form of electronic payment.

NalNezumi3• 1 year ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/funnysigns/comments/1getgra/a_resta...

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

mrln• 1 year ago

The link is dead

Tainnor2• 1 year ago

To be fair, that's not a very difficult sentence to read for someone who has studied a moderate amount of Japanese. Doesn't mean you could actually order food.

Pooge4• 1 year ago

But if you can't read Japanese, you would enter because you don't understand the sign in the first place...

bryanlarsen4• 1 year ago

And a few more of the seedier bars just have a “no foreigners” sign out front.

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.

Pooge4• 1 year ago

nomihodai

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...

VWWHFSfQ2• 1 year ago

no foreigners

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.

seanmcdirmid4• 1 year ago

Snack bars (the seedier bars you talk about) have always had a policy of no foreigners. In fact, I think it’s just in the standard snacks bar sign template.

timr18• 1 year ago

I have been to many snack bars. They're everywhere, they're not "seedy", and nearly all of them are open to anyone.

NalNezumi3• 1 year ago

Many places also (used to) have sign saying 一見さんおことわり which roughly translate to "first time visitor not allowed". A little bit up to interpretation but usually in the scope of:

* 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

GolDDranks• 1 year ago

I've been to many snack bars, and once in my almost ten years in Japan, I found one that didn't welcome foreigners.

Klonoar6• 1 year ago

This is false, IME. If you spent enough time to learn how to navigate it, you could get in to most of them. I'm not even fluent and it really wasn't a big deal.

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.

agnishom5• 1 year ago

That may be true, but I don't think that's what they were talking about. They were talking about fairly normal izakayas

WangComputers• 1 year ago

"they’re serious about “no entry” if you have tattoos"

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.

AnotherGoodName• 1 year ago

I suspect a blind eye would be turned if it’s pretty obviously not a yakuza tattoo right?

dagw• 1 year ago

It's fairly unusual to strictly enforce it on foreigners. Every place I've been with a no tattoos policy generally overlook tourists with smaller unassuming tattoos.

antonkochubey• 1 year ago

or get car insurance

eh? there's a stripping-down room in insurance offices?

do you have to submit nudes if you're buying insurance online?

guardiangod2• 1 year ago

I was in a Shikoku hotel's public bath a couple month ago, and a guy with full on Yakuza back (and arms) tattoo came in to shower. No one batted an eye. Granted no staff was present, so no one enforced the rule. I also did not try to get a glimpse of his pinkies.

timr18• 1 year ago

I don't know about the Ramen place (I can't believe that they wouldn't take cash?), but I agree with you that more places are doing this kind of "two markets" stuff -- it's even becoming official, in that now there's officially sanctioned "foreigner pricing" for certain temples, shrines, and parks. There's also Google Maps and Yelp vs. Japan's local version (pretty much any review on the former two are useless, and hopelessly biased by clueless tourists).

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.

amluto2• 1 year ago

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

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.

esperent2• 1 year ago

it still requires advance planning for a place that used to be a casual, walk-in experience

So, much like every restaurant that becomes popular, anywhere in the world?

cultofmetatron• 1 year ago

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

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.

throwaway3b03• 1 year ago

I can't believe that they wouldn't take cash?

What's so hard to believe about that? Lots of places in the Netherlands don't accept cash (probably out of convenience).

bee_rider2• 1 year ago

It is almost a paradox or something; what makes a lot of places is the local clientele (or the long term visitors). Plus, the tourists won’t support the business during the off season (although I’m not sure if Japan really has an off season).

SapporoChris• 1 year ago

Some of the restaurants have ticket vending machines outside the shop. This avoids the need for a cashier inside the restaurant. It also mostly avoids the process of staff taking your order. Purchase your meal ticket from machine outside, hand ticket to cook as you enter, and take your seat.

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.

supportengineer• 1 year ago

Is there any place you can go to avoid Scam culture? Anywhere at all? It seems pervasive.

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.

scoofy• 1 year ago

I remember when Four Barrel Coffee had blown up in SF. I lived in the neighborhood, and learned, there was just an entrance in the ally behind the building for locals. No sign, just a way to skip the line.

I have no idea if it’s still there, but I thought it was a super clever way of doing things.

gtowey• 1 year ago

I think it's worse than that. I'm starting to think that there may not really be an ethical way to be a tourist in a foreign country. Especially coming from a high cost of living area to a lower one.

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.

gherkinnn• 1 year ago

There's also Google Maps and Yelp vs. Japan's local version (pretty much any review on the former two are useless, and hopelessly biased by clueless tourists).

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.

projectazorian5• 1 year ago

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.

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.

deaddodo6• 1 year ago

That said, they’re serious about “no entry” if you have tattoos.

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.

returningfory24• 1 year ago

Indeed, but in my experience many of these places have an unspoken sub-rule that the tattoo rule is not enforced for foreigners.

mock-possum• 1 year ago

Ugh the ‘no tattoo’ discrimination thing really bugs me.

varispeed• 1 year ago

I remember this. Wanted to order something from a vending machine and had no clue what to do. I went to a nearby hotel and asked person at the reception to help. They actually agreed and bought the item I wanted and didn't want cash for it. Made my day.

keysdev2• 1 year ago

Its about time we do that. This look online for good local places to go needs to stop. You either live there for some times and discover the place by getting to know the locals or yeah you just do not get to know the place.

dvdkon• 1 year ago

Where does that stop, though? Should people only ever explore their own city? Most people will only be able to move once every few years.

flexagoon• 1 year ago

Would that really work? I've lived in the same city for my entire life, and I still mostly discover places to go to online.

okdood64• 1 year ago

And a few more of the seedier bars just have the (time honored) “no foreigners” sign out front.

Eh, even some non "seedy" ones have it. It's common enough.

patrickscoleman• 1 year ago

Even as a foreigner who speaks Japanese, I frequently got the "we're closed" and crossing the hands in an X response while locals continued eating. Sometime they'd laugh and I'd hear "gaijin" (rude slang for foreigner) as I walked out.

But plenty of places were super warm and friendly after the initial apprehension if you speak Japanese and read some kanji. Worth the effort!

tmtvl• 1 year ago

If I remember correctly, gaijin is just how you say 'foreigner' in standard Japanese. The rude slang is jingai.

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.

projectazorian5• 1 year ago

I never got this, but at busy times it was not uncommon to get a super apologetic "we're full" when there were clearly a few seats available. Honestly I get it, foreigners are higher effort to deal with and if you're already busy you might not want to deal with that. Or they could be holding seats for regulars, etc.

anigbrowl12• 1 year ago

"gaijin" (rude slang for foreigner)

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.

raffael_de• 1 year ago

“no foreigners” sign out front

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.

jacobgkau12• 1 year ago

A matcha place I like only lets you order from the real menu after you’ve unlocked enough visits from a punch card.

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.

jancsika• 1 year ago

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).

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.

JCharante• 1 year ago

how does the physical JCB card prevent people? Amex has an agreement with JCB (for over 20 years) for JCB to process all Amex cards. Amex is accepted everywhere because JCB is accepted everywhere

keiferski3• 1 year ago

There are a ton of articles about over-tourism in Japan lately, and after thinking about it for awhile, I think you can boil it down to two things other than the obvious (the yen losing value, etc.)

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.

shigawire• 1 year ago

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?

keiferski3• 1 year ago

Maybe neoliberal was a bad word choice. I basically just mean that many “modern” places in the world have the same generic look to them, whether you’re in Dubai or New York or Warsaw. Japan also has these places, but somehow they are a bit more uniquely Japanese than in most other places (for example, the phenomenon of salarymen.)

matthewdgreen• 1 year ago

I visited in 2007 and 2024 and the weird is still there, but some of the “this place is at the absolute cutting edge of cool and tech and weird” is gone. The most disappointing thing was seeing how much of the cutting edge “PC” and electronics culture was gone from Akihabara (presumably it all went to Shenzhen) and how everything sold there is just older gaming systems (did not stop us from purchasing a beautiful Nintendo Famicom.) I’m sure there are some interesting things happening that will be cool in a decade, but it’s definitely a slightly different place.

seanmcdirmid4• 1 year ago

The e-markets in China have also reduced a lot. The rise of online shopping killed made them less necessary for their original purposes.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK• 1 year ago

The weird thing in Japan for me was a book store in Tokyo, filled by men at 2am, all reading comics books.

Jach3• 1 year ago

There's a meme that Japan entered the 2000s in the 80s and then just stayed there.

My first trip was in 2017, but even between then and the second trip in 2022, I could tell Akiba lost even more of its electronics culture. I was there last December and helped someone build a PC. At least for "standard" stuff you can get by, though for sourcing many things the best solution was often, somewhat sadly, Amazon JP. For things like GPUs you had to double-check you're buying new, not used, because shops will display both sometimes in the same case. All prices were somewhat more than what it'd cost to import from the US + pay taxes on that. (Except for canon camera batteries, I picked up an extra one on one of my trips and was surprised how much cheaper it was.)

For another of my own purchases, I needed to get some extra laptop RAM to finish a graphics project locally as my home machine I was remoting to was acting up. It was a struggle finding any place with them in stock at all, in or outside Akiba, and then those in sizes greater than 4 GB. And when I did, I still had to talk to someone at the counter, who pulled out a shoebox of assorted brands and sizes. Just so bizarre compared to almost every other component from HDDs to SSDs to USB sticks and more being on public walls/racks to pick over -- at worst there'd be just a rack of tags and you select the product by tag and the person at the counter will get it when you check out. Didn't have that at all for laptop RAM. I found a place at last that had a single 16 GB stick I could use, which at least helped me make progress until Amazon could get a second one to me and let me stop toeing the edge of maxing out my memory.

skeezyboy2• 1 year ago

Japan is certainly Westernised, hentai notwithstanding.

tartoran2• 1 year ago

Japan is westernized in some ways but it managed to keep something original to Japanese culture that you can't find otherplace.

Karrot_Kream• 1 year ago

Strongly disagree with #2. I think every foreigner who visits the big Japanese cities gets charmed by its quirky land use and small shops, but the reality of Japan is that most things are owned by conglomerates and that depopulation means that increasingly blue collar work is being done by immigrants (sound familiar?) Japanese lifestyle resembles America from the 2000s in broad strokes. China and India still have a lot of their older culture present. Indians often dress in clothing that's recognizably non-Western in every day situations and both countries have food cultures that are pretty different from the West.

NalNezumi3• 1 year ago

The problem isn't small businesses. Japan already have millions of hard to find gems that even the locals don't know, because the owners barely market things (runs on local patronage) and those are still doing fine outside the tourism craze. And those places can be quite direct about not wanting the one-off tourist; When I was an exchange student in Kyoto we were told off from a couple of places, which wasn't an issue.

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.

dfxm122• 1 year ago

...small business purpose quickly shifts into: Being a community hub for a core group of regulars.

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.

bryanlarsen4• 1 year ago

Tourism in Japan is still pretty low compared to traditional tourism hot spots like Paris or Rome. As is usual, it's the relative change that is significant rather than the absolute numbers. The change from "almost none" to "some" affects a place more than the change from "a lot" to "even more".

shusaku• 1 year ago

I was thinking similarly, because you go to a famously tourist packed city like Paris and find nothing by local shops. But concluded differently than you: the article is just wrong.

seanmcdirmid4• 1 year ago

I don’t think that’s true if you add in Chinese tourists, which are like 80% of Japan’s overseas tourist mix, it is china’s #2 overseas tourist destination after Korea (adjacency has a lot to do with that). France is #23, while China is the largest and fastest growing market for overseas tourists.

pilingual• 1 year ago

That's not true. https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/us-trips-to-japan-surp...

bryanlarsen4• 1 year ago

AFAICT, Germans & Brits outnumber Americans in Paris and Chinese outnumber Americans in Tokyo. So American numbers aren't particularly significant, IMO.

But seanmcdirmid in a sibling comment is likely correct, and I'm possibly wrong.

makeitdouble• 1 year ago

Tourism in Japan is fine if concentrated in central Tokyo or major cities for instance. You can try to flood Shibuya or Ginza with tens of thousands of tourists everyday it won't be much of an issue.

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.

ragazzina• 1 year ago

Tourism in Japan is still pretty low compared to traditional tourism hot spots like Paris or Rome.

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...

bryanlarsen4• 1 year ago

That's a list of where people want to go. Further down in the article is the list of cities where people actually go. Tokyo isn't in the top 10.

pm215• 1 year ago

It also felt to me to be weirdly concentrated in particular small areas. I spent a few weeks in various places in northern Japan which varied from "very quiet" to "tourists but not too many"; but in Tokyo, Akihabara was absolutely heaving with tourists (in a way it wasn't five years ago). And even in Tokyo just getting a little way away from the hotspots you could find beautiful but quiet places still. So I agree with the author's suggestion to go to parts of the country that aren't the tiny fraction of super-famous locations or social-media sensations.

returningfory24• 1 year ago

I feel like tourist places are “weirdly concentrated” as you put it. When I was Florence the center was obviously super busy, but walking only 15 minutes in one direction there seemed to be almost no tourists around (of course, the area I was in didn’t have any sights). It made me think that maybe there’s a bias to the feeling of overtourism because people think about the one part of the city where all the tourists are.

guardiangod2• 1 year ago

Rome had been the center of the western world for 2000 years, and Paris for 400. You can't compare those "well-trodden" cities to Kyoto, which was relatively secluded from tourists until the invention of jet airliners.

rwmj2• 1 year ago

I was in Rome a couple of summers ago (not as a tourist) and it was pretty crazy how many tourists there were. You could hardly walk along the streets in the centre. I wouldn't want to live there as a local, or ever be anywhere which is "not quite as bad as Rome".

boogieknite• 1 year ago

my favorite food from my visit was a mochi stand in Fujisawa station. it was a station of tables and had a sign that said MOCHI all over it

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

hamandcheese• 1 year ago

Only psychopaths love Manhattan because of Duane Reade.

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.

seanmcdirmid4• 1 year ago

And the shopping is pretty good. A Muji flagship store just has a lot of things to buy that you aren’t going to find in a downtown Portland or Paris Muji.

slillibri• 1 year ago

Don't forget Yoshinoya, Sukiya, or Cafe Gusto.

jerryliu12• 1 year ago

Have to say that I'm shocked that the local government hasn't cracked down on the Mario Kart stuff.

timr18• 1 year ago

They're starting to ban it. Japan's wheels of government move slowly, but they tend to be effective when they do move.

Klonoar6• 1 year ago

It's happened on and off over the years, and at one point Nintendo took legal action against the business itself. It's just an annoyingly persistent tourist trap.

chihuahua• 1 year ago

I agree. These go-karts are only street legal vehicles if the government agrees that they are street legal. If the government passes a rule that says go-karts are not street legal, they can be confiscated and destroyed as soon as they are spotted by the police. It seems that this problem could be easily solved.

agnishom5• 1 year ago

I am not sure I understand the argument the author is making. Is this what they are saying? [Overtourism is bad for small businesses because it encourages them to cater to tourists, and therefore to chase global trends rather than to serve the taste of the local community]

I am sure many of them would be a little upset, but I don't understand how this counts as "hurting" small businesses?

skeezyboy2• 1 year ago

he thinks there are businesses out there that do it for the love, and somehow dont need customers or revenue to survive. and ill have to dig my heels in when he says they arent doing it to get rich.

franciscojs• 1 year ago

I'm on the same boat. On one hand it seems tourism is a bad thing, on the other it recommends places that are little known to tourism... oh well

typewithrhythm4• 1 year ago

Because you are using "small business" as an abstract term, where in reality it's often a stand in for one or two people.

Those people are now providing a service to anonymous tourists, rather than being part of a community.

It's isolating.

prokopton• 1 year ago

I’ve lived in Nagoya for 20 years and Kyoto’s unbearable to visit anymore. I loved it twenty years ago but I have no interest in wading through the tourists from overseas.

ProllyInfamous• 1 year ago

In the mid 2000s, I visited (white American) with my then-fiancé (a foreign-born native), and it was absolutely incredible to travel with her and her still-living-there extended family.

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?

piazz• 1 year ago

Another visitor was spending a leisurely week in Morioka alone before heading to Fukuoka for a few months.

Oh hey, that was me! Small (internet) world, huh :)

franciscop3• 1 year ago

I find Japan a bit strange about these "making profit" topics. I still don't fully grasp how it's possible so many of these business that "poured much of their life savings into opening these places, taken out loans" don't rejoice and raise their prices (a bit? a lot?), making them able to do this thing they are doing, much better. Heck invite the regulars to the 2nd drink with that extra money that is coming in now if you want, or give them a discount.

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.

blibble• 1 year ago

Here there is the opportunity of a lifetime, and many Japan business are straight out rejecting the money that comes pouring in.

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

herdrick• 1 year ago

From the parent comment: "Heck invite the regulars to the 2nd drink with that extra money that is coming in now if you want, or give them a discount." That could even be revenue neutral, if she wants it to be. Why not try that?

franciscop3• 1 year ago

I know, I'm totally fine with that, but then don't bring money into the article like those people are burdened economically by these tourists, you cannot have it both ways.

eunos2• 1 year ago

because not everyone cares firstly about money?

You better care money first and foremost because when downturns came it could be devastating, remember the great lockdown?

johngossman3• 1 year ago

I was just thinking about restaurants. The iconic French or Italian restaurant is larger than the iconic Japanese izakaya with 10 seats. And unlike the tapas bars of Spain, it isn't expected you'll move on to the next place or take your food outside.

jalapenos11• 1 year ago

They probably just don't know how to do it right, not that they're against the money.

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.

lbreakjai2• 1 year ago

These sorts of critics always struck me as elitist and pretentious. If reminds me of those kids gatekeeping music genres and claiming you couldn't call yourself a fan unless you listened to the most obscure album of the most obscure band.

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.

sorcerer-mar3• 1 year ago

Popular cities, and popular attractions within, are popular for a reason.

Reasons which typically don't include "can sustain infinite visitors"

tourismscourge1• 1 year ago

Like Tour Eiffel, London Eye, Brooklyn Bridge, places with incalculable aesthetic value that nothing have to do with Hype

Klonoar6• 1 year ago

Craig's been more or less an indirect cultural ambassador/link for Japan in the tech scene for something like the past 15-20 years. I very much doubt he's gatekeeping.

post_break• 1 year ago

The gatekeeping music reminds me of this skit. It's a word document.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5-rGN0ou_4

jacobgkau12• 1 year ago

You got me by captioning a YouTube link with "it's a word document."

zeroonetwothree2• 1 year ago

This argument seems to be heavily tinged with xenophobia. Local customers good, foreign ones bad? I can understand if it was specifically about the volume…

gspencley• 1 year ago

Not only that, but these business owners are actively complaining about an influx of business.

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.

Argonaut9982• 1 year ago

So what? They’re right. Japanese are a million times more civilized than us foreigners/tourists.

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

jalapenos11• 1 year ago

This is wildly out of line.

Foreigners are at least 10% as civilized.

Minks• 1 year ago

People get really picky about their xenophobia and racism lmao

peterldowns• 1 year ago

I walked the Kumano Kodo after reading Craig's essay about it. I like to think I was one of the 15% he talks about here. One of these days I'll go back to Japan and I'll make sure to go to Morioka.

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?

reedf1• 1 year ago

I would like harder evidence that Japanese business owners hate high-spending tourists. From my personal experience small business owners have at least appeared to very much appreciate my custom. There is a sordid history of Westerners defending Japan from itself - I'm not saying that is happening here, but I would like to see more systematic evidence.

cainxinth• 1 year ago

It’s common throughout the world for locals from tourist destinations to bemoan the tourists while happily accepting their money.

olalonde2• 1 year ago

Seems like a long winded version of "No one goes there anymore anyways, its too crowded".

agnishom5• 1 year ago

How can you have "its too crowded" and "no one goes there" at the same time?

olalonde2• 1 year ago

It's meant to be humorous.

cedws2• 1 year ago

I live in Tokyo at the moment. I get the overtourism thing, because after you've been here even just a little while (months) you start to have a disdain for tourists that do tourist things. Like breaking the rules, being a nuisance, swarming parts of the city.

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.

anon-39883• 1 year ago

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.

cedws2• 1 year ago

My home country, the UK, has already been through this cultural erosion which is why I respect Japan's right to defend its own. London in particular has become a place for everybody and at the same time for nobody. It's a city of people of different values and wavelengths with very little shared strata compared with Tokyo.

vunderba• 1 year ago

Tangential to this but I lived in Taiwan for years and every time I saw a new Starbucks or McDonald's go up, I'd have to restrain my gag reflex.

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.

peab3• 1 year ago

I get it too. I visited japan recently and in the main touristy spots (tokyo and kyoto), it felt like there were more westerners then japanese. I felt bad.

Klonoar6• 1 year ago

If you experience this in Tokyo, you're dealing with the fact that it's a truly global city and you're not venturing off the tourist path enough. It's definitely still a thing in some parts of Tokyo to have few-to-no westerners.

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.

dumbledoren3• 1 year ago

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

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.

zarzavat3• 1 year ago

And I hold no hard feelings toward them for that.

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.

sisosooss• 1 year ago

Xenophobia is simply an unworkable idea

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”.

TrappedInCorner2• 1 year ago

I find it amusing when Japan wants to be a homogenous society everybody respects their right to have that opinion. But when a european country voices the same wish, everybody loses their mind.

spicyusername• 1 year ago

I wouldn't go so far as to say everybody respects it. Some people, maybe.

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.

blks2• 1 year ago

Immigrants like you. Not “expats”.

jacobgkau12• 1 year ago

There is an actual difference between those two words. GP said he lives in Tokyo "at the moment." Immigrants intend to settle permanently; expats move places temporarily and will eventually either move on to somewhere else or go back home.

Expats can turn into immigrants, but one who "knows deep down they don't belong" is less likely to.

wavemode• 1 year ago

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 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.

anigbrowl12• 1 year ago

I think you are laboring from behind a few very common blind spots.

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.

EasyMark2• 1 year ago

Seems like a golden opportunity to be smart about it and use advertising to make less visited parts of cities tourist attractions. People want to experience Japan, but naturally focii will appear over time via positive feedback, you have to overcome that with advertising and promotions on the web via influencers and advertising. That seems like a government focus if they are really interested in doing something about it.

agnishom5• 1 year ago

going to go through a difficult period of cultural erosion

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

dudeinjapan7• 1 year ago

I'm the CTO & Founder of TableCheck, the booking system used by 10,000+ restaurants in Japan. My two cents: the issue isn't simply "too many tourists" but rather over-concentration at a few hotspots, a domestic-first market, low English proficiency (ranked #87 globally, a notch above Afghanistan), and a culture deeply focused on orderliness and not causing inconvenience for others.

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!

dividefuel2• 1 year ago

Do you sense there's still a reluctance to serve foreign guests, and that it's largely done out of necessity but not out of innate desire?

dudeinjapan7• 1 year ago

No, I really don't. Chefs and restaurant operators chose their profession out of a genuine desire to share cuisine and hospitality experiences with as many people as possible, and the vast majority genuinely appreciate meeting international guests who share their love for food. I've even heard Michelin chefs go as far to say that they feel their culinary art is more appreciated by international guests than the domestic audience.

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.

valenterry5• 1 year ago

critical for a country facing a 30% population decline by 2070

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.

dudeinjapan7• 1 year ago

I can say that this fact of population decline (and population aging) weighs heavily on the Japanese psyche, especially in the business world. The hottest topic for our customers in sales discussions is definitely "attracting inbound tourists".

_fat_santa2• 1 year ago

I live in Colorado and we have a similar issue (though not nearly to the scale of Japan). The line about getting "TikTokked" really struck a chord because there have been a few places that have fallen to the same fate, spots that the locals only knew about are now filled to the brim with both locals and tourists from out of state.

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.

Freak_NL• 1 year ago

[…] unless the place holds some incredible cultural significance (ie. The Louvre, Sagrada Família, etc).

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.

blackguardx• 1 year ago

I also live in Colorado and have noticed the same thing lately. A state park near me gets slammed with tourists but there isn't much to do there unless you like hiking up steep trails or rock climbing. Most folks seem to drive in, walk around for 30 minutes, and then leave.

johngossman3• 1 year ago

A good, nuanced piece, especially if you read the footnotes. I'd add that some businesses aren't set up for seasonality as well as others. Pretty much every country has beach towns full of shops and motels that close in winter. But a lot of the small businesses the article is talking about are open year round and depend on locals. If you can't get into your local 4 months out of the year, it probably isn't your local anymore

tourismscourge• 1 year ago

Cities are not amusement parks

steveBK1234• 1 year ago

Visiting Japan in 2025 definitely had a different vibe than my 2010s visits. First of all, so many more foreigners, and multiple western languages overheard nearly anywhere I went.

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.

speak_plainly2• 1 year ago

I just got back from Japan, and even though it wasn’t peak season, the effects of overtourism were immediately apparent.

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.

silisili• 1 year ago

The result is a tourism culture shaped less by genuine interest or curiosity and more by curated photo ops

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.

speak_plainly2• 1 year ago

The cynic in me thinks that destinations/countries are going to have to pay an influencer tax and have a strong social media policy that works to direct/redirect and educate potential tourists. Japan needs to start spreading tourism a bit more evenly across the country. They could probably work with hotels to use pricing to even out visitors. But you’re right, this is a huge problem that goes well beyond Japan.

absove• 1 year ago

In my experience everyone believes they're part of this 15% of travelers interested in the local culture and not one of those stupid NPC going through the motions so the distinction this article is drawing between good and bad tourism completely defeats the point it was trying to make.

Argonaut9982• 1 year ago

I felt awful about being in Kyoto last year. Had I known how bad it was for the locals I would never have went. I can’t imagine how frustrated and angry if my home town was the same. The infrastructure can’t support the number of tourists unlike Tokyo. Locals can’t even get a bus without them being completely full to the brim all the day long.

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.

kondro• 1 year ago

Kyoto, a city that literally almost went bankrupt during COVID due to lack of tourism.

anigbrowl12• 1 year ago

Municipal bankruptcy is a medium-term problem, but as we're seeing, the dose makes the poison. Suffocating under an excess of tourism is arguably worse than a shortage of it, which could be replaced by other sorts of economic activity.

8note6• 1 year ago

a problem caused by tourism killing off other industries, no?

djoldman• 1 year ago

So why do people open small shops? For any number of reasons, but my favorite is: They have a strong opinion about how some aspect of a business should be run, and they want to double down on it....That singular thing can drive an initial impulse, but small business purpose quickly shifts into: Being a community hub for a core group of regulars. That — community — is probably the biggest asset of small business ownership. And the quickest way to kill community (perhaps the most valuable gift for running a small business) is to go viral in a damaging way.
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.

toastercat• 1 year ago

I've traveled to Japan twice in the last 6 years; once pre-pandemic in 2019, and again in 2023, both times in the Fall. It is unbelievable how tourism has exploded there in such a short amount of time, and I thought it was bad in 2019. Areas that were quiet and mostly traversable in 2019 were impossible to navigate with the crowds four years later.

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.

jlaiwejrlij• 1 year ago

Social media is why we can't have nice things

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.

1024core• 1 year ago

but in my opinion, the most rewarding point of travelling is: to sit with, and spend time with The Other ...

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.

zephyrthenoble• 1 year ago

I feel like this one is a mixed bag. I would be very annoyed if my every day life was disrupted by tourists, especially like in the train stop example, and losing local businesses and attractions to outsiders is terrible. I don't want to minimize these issues at all, so to be clear, the rest of this post is just me wondering about the right thing to do while also still getting to visit interesting locations.

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.

s1mon• 1 year ago

I've been aware of Craig Mod from a distance for a while, and from what I've seen of his books and other works, he's very thoughtful and deeply sensitive to culture, but somehow it seems pretty hypocritical to write this when his most recent book is essentially a travelogue about obscure places in Japan. Of course the Tik Tok generation is not likely to be reading his books, but he is in effect adding to the load on locations which may not be ready for them.

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.

bitwize2• 1 year ago

I loved going to Japan in 2011, when it was still mainly just weebs doing tourism and they were relatively very few and quite harmless. I would not go today, because I neither want to see nor contribute to this problem.

I'll come back when the idiots settle down. Meanwhile, my wife wants to see France and Scotland.

micromacrofoot• 1 year ago

This seems to be be becoming an increasing problem in many places, there are a number of protests that have popped up in Madrid, Venice, Hawaii, Mexico City, Lisbon...

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?

tkgally• 1 year ago

Only anecdotal, but I’ve noticed recently what seems to be a gap in the social-media-driven concentration of tourists in Japan: traditional museums.

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.

jacobgkau12• 1 year ago

Personally (and ironically), I wouldn't usually think of museums if I'm looking for something non-touristy. Walking through a museum, reading and looking at things that've been laid out in a specific order for me to consume, just feels like reading a website. Unless it's a unique exhibit, there's little interactivity, and while things can certainly be learned, I often wonder if I couldn't have learned them just as well from a book.

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.)

ogurechny• 1 year ago

Let's set the mood with a famous story.

https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/ivan-bunin/short-fiction/s...

benced• 1 year ago

I'm sympathetic to most of the article but I really dislike when articles like this slip in things like "This is most readily evident in, say, the Mario Kart scourge of Tokyo".

You can just ban those karts! It's not tourists fault that you haven't.

SpaceManNabs• 1 year ago

If Japan wants to limit tourists, they can. If they don't, it is because they truly don't want the tradeoff.

wisty• 1 year ago

I think this is just overblown?

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.

crakhamster01• 1 year ago

There's undoubtedly a cohort of tourists that come to Japan with the "Disneyland" mindset, and I agree that some sort of government-level change is needed to curb abuse. But I would like to believe these folks are in the minority.

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.

discodonkey• 1 year ago

I don't understand how you can portray these small-business owners as some helpless lambs, powerless against tourists. I can think of many ways to stop tourists from patronising an establishment. But of course (that one cocktail bar owner notwithstanding), most businesses operate for profit, and lap that money up.

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.

therealpygon• 1 year ago

“It’s bad for my business that I now have lots of customers who aren’t my preferred race/nationality” seems a wild thing to say, because the reality is that the customers stop coming not because of “tourists”, but because they don’t like “foreigners“.

rangestransform• 1 year ago

Overtourism is such a comical exaggeration, NYC gets twice as many international visitors annually as Tokyo, with less local population, but doesn’t feel the need to discriminate against tourists at all basically

Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses

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