You're Wrong About Overtourism In Japan
Overtourism in Japan has become a bit of a controversial topic in recent years. There's reports of people nearly getting hit by a train 'cause they couldn't cross the road in time. We've all seen videos of people doing dumb and disrespectful things for social media, people getting into fights, and of course, there is that gosh damn fence. We're in
the offseason right now, but cherry blossom season is just around the corner, and by 2030, the government wants to increase tourism numbers to almost double what they are right now. So, I'll bet my bottom dollar we're going to see more of the above very, very soon. But what if I told you things aren't actually that bad? There's an article recently by Jro Grey that made me aware of the fact that, even with the increase in tourism, the population of Japan has been steadily declining. So, if you compare the number of people in Japan from 2019 to 2024, there's actually 1.5 million fewer people here right now. In 2023, tourists to Japan were
around 25 million, but in Paris, they will almost double that. Not France, Paris. It's not a perfect comparison by any means, but it's still worth noting that some people have said, and I quote, "Statistically speaking, Japan might not be experiencing overtourism at all." So, what's going on here? Why does it feel so much worse than it is on paper, and what are the actual solutions to these problems? A portion of this video is sponsored by Cluke. Anyone who's lived in Japan for longer than 5 years can tell you that this isn't really a new problem here. You can cut to the video I made about it in January 2020—nice—but it does feel as though it's ramped up very, very quickly. While overtourism hits different countries at different intensities for a number of different reasons, including geography, infrastructure, and the layout of cities, Japan is quite unique. If you take Kyoto, for example,
the streets are narrow, the restaurants are tiny, and the buses are more commonly used over trains, which hold fewer people. So, they're just more prone to overcrowding in general. Public transport in Japan is so good that everyone uses it all the time, so tourists are just much more in your face than they would be if you were living in a car-centric city, where it might be easy to miss them entirely. Hi, I have another one that I missed, and I don't know how I missed it, 'cause it's like the main one—and that is that people are just so, so, so, so concentrated in very specific places in Japan, like Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, obviously.
But even within those cities, it's concentrated even more. Like, if you go to any of the temples in Kyoto that aren't one of the main five places that everybody goes to, you pretty much have the entire thing to yourself. It's crazy. I cannot stress this enough: this is the main problem that Japan has seen. I travel all over the country to all kinds of places, and I just can't believe how few people there are when I'm out there. This is just my entire channel, truthfully.
Contrary to what social media will have you believe, I don't think that tourists behaving badly are the biggest issues the locals are facing when it comes to overtourism. I see the problems as kind of like a pyramid structure. At the bottom, the biggest issue that I can see at least is the locals getting priced out of their own areas or just being unable to travel Japan in general. Things are very expensive these days. There's a rising cost of living, the yen is weak, and tourist towns are just so expensive. Chris and I stayed at a hotel in Tokyo in April 2022, and I checked it again for the exact same dates, and the prices were up 450%. It's insane.
Next up, I would say that there's just not enough space on the trains and in their daily lives. It's like a pretty obvious problem. I just cannot believe how busy Tokyo is at the moment. Then we've got like disruption of the peace—people not understanding the rules, the language just kind of getting in the way and causing delays—and then we've got damage to infrastructure and facilities. And all of this adds up over time. Like, once you're already stressed about these big issues, you're going to be pissed when you see someone shaking a cherry blossom tree. And I'm not the
only one saying this. There's a YouTuber named Takashi, and he interviewed a bunch of locals in Kyoto, asking them about overtourism, and their responses are not at all what you would expect. Most of them actually loved seeing so many people in Kyoto. Of course, it's been excellent for business, but they just love being able to share the culture of Kyoto with people, and it's honestly an extremely touching watch. You should go take it out. But the main problem that
people talked about wasn't tourists acting badly, but just that it's really crowded, and it's really difficult to get the bus to work because they're full of tourists. It just paints a very different picture than you would ever see in the news. And like, I'm not saying that we shouldn't care about people that act badly, but I have noticed that it feels good to comment angry things under a video like this because it makes it feel like you're actually making a tangible change to the state of things. Like, it makes it feel like... and it also kind of makes you feel like a little bit morally superior, if we're all honest with ourselves. Social media, or even
just like regular media, is just really good at shining the spotlight on like one little thing, and it makes us feel like we all need to really care about this thing. But oftentimes, reality is very, very different, and the actual problems just aren't as like stimulating. You know, nothing, nothing screams boring like the rising cost of living. You know, it's much easier to just complain about shaking the cherry blossom tree. I think—and this is just my opinion—that tourism is frustrating to the locals because the rises happen so quickly, and the government is too slow to act on the issues. D.D., she mentioned the government. All right, I'm about to enter forbidden territory as a foreigner in Japan. I know I'm a guest here. I should just be thankful.
Uh, you know, if I don't like it, I should just leave, right? Look, I don't want to like fundamentally change Japan in any way, but I have lived here for 9 years. Most of my adult life has been here. I pay tax. I pay a lot of taxes here, and I work in the tourism industry, where I've been consulted multiple times by various tourism boards around the country, including the JNTO, about this very issue. So, I feel like I'm allowed to say a thing or two about it. The government wants to nearly double the number of tourists by 2030. They have been
advertising and planning this for years and years and years, and now—and it's working! Like, well, even though the tourism numbers are only up like 16% in the year, spending is up 69%, reaching $50 billion last year. The government wants to double this. So, I don't think that it's unreasonable to ask for a little bit of assistance from the people promoting it. The sharp increase in tourism, especially to very specific spots, coupled with the government's inability to move quickly, has caused a lot of what I will call kneejerk or Band-Aid fixes. Case in point: the Mount Fuji Lawson. If you're not familiar with this story, basically, there's a Lawson that's got a really amazing view of Mount Fuji, and for whatever reason, it just became the next big Instagrammable spot. The street it's on is really tiny. There wasn't much of a pathway, so people would just be like crossing the road, getting in the way of traffic, and blocking the entrance to the office that was across the road from it. And overall, it
was just a big-ass nuisance to the locals. So, in an effort to stop people from taking photos there, they just put up a fence to block the view. It was all over the news and social media, and it was blown out of proportion and clickbaited and rage-baited and reacted to hell. And after a
very windy day, they very quietly took down the fence and never put it back up. Oh, what a mess. Now, I understand that making big changes to stop problems like this from happening can take a really long time—to consult with experts and city planners, and then by the time you come to a solution, the location might not even be trending anymore. And then all of that money spent was for nothing. I feel like it's probably like playing whack-a-mole with all these Instagrammable spots getting discovered all over the country. It's not easy by any means, but I'm just not sure that simply trying to block people from taking photos is the right move, especially since we all know that the pushiest and most entitled of people aren't going to be deterred by a mesh fence. And we saw that in person when people poked holes in it anyway. Now, if you don't live in Japan, I understand that hearing all of this isn't really the most like motivating or nice thing to hear if you're like planning a trip to Japan. But I am here to
tell you that thankfully, the answer isn't... the experts agree with this: the answer is not just "don't travel to Japan," 'cause after all, the Japanese government wants tourists to visit and all of the dollars that they bring with them to help the economy. And also, chances are, if you're watching this video, you're probably a very mindful person, and you're causing less strain on the infrastructure than most people anyway. Like, if you're watching this video, you're probably already doing your research for your next trip, you're learning how the trains work, you're learning a few Japanese phrases to use on the go, and you're probably not blocking the pathway while you do a dance for TikTok. And that's great! One solution that all experts agree on—and I'll talk more about the solutions later—is to travel outside of the major attractions, which is something I am a huge, huge, huge advocate for. Like, it supports the local communities, and it's
something that the Japanese government is like actively encouraging right now. Unfortunately, access to a lot of these places can be kind of tricky, especially, heaven forbid, if you have to book your tickets on a Japanese website. Sometimes you can buy your shinkansen train tickets, like personal tour packages, or like tickets to things like a tea ceremony with Michael in Kyoto, for example, on a website called Clue, which is the sponsor for this video. They're a website that offers hundreds of tickets to all kinds of experiences and transports all around the world, but particularly in Japan. They support multiple languages, and you can pay in pretty much every major currency, so you avoid like conversion fees from your bank and everything. Their site's really
easy to navigate, you'll know exactly what it is that you're getting, and their prices will pretty much never be beat 'cause they've often got like extra discounts on top. So, for example, March 1st to March 31st, they've got a massive sale for the cherry blossom season that offers up to 50% off hundreds of tours and activities across Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, and you'll get an additional 10% off most activities if you use the promo code currentlyhannah when it comes time to book. So, 50% off plus an additional 10% off? Yeah, you'll be saving heaps of money and stress by booking with Clue. All the details are in the description.
They're a great site, and they make things so, so, so easy, so go check them out or you can download the app, whichever is easiest for you. Another thing that I always recommend by experts is to encourage slow travel. This is something that's been talked about quite a bit in recent years. It's just a much more sustainable way of traveling. It's basically things like staying
in one place for longer than just a few days, taking it slower, engaging with the locals, and spending your money on small businesses where it's more likely to go further. It's not an option for everyone, but if it is an option for you, I can highly recommend doing that. Now, going back to the Mount Fuji Lawson for a second, it seems like a popular reaction to this news is just, "Man, these influencers, Instagram's a curse!" He writes on the Instagram app. Obviously, I am what you might call an influencer, so I'm obviously very heavily biased here, but social media being so prominent in our lives and the fact that everyone has a really nice camera in our pockets has caused, yes, influencers, but also just everyday people now want to take good photos. And you might disagree with me, but I don't think that this is inherently bad. It's just a symptom
of the society that we live in. I hate to use the "we live in a society" line, but it's true. We do live in a society, and we want to take photos. Like, even the most vocal person who's like, "[__] these influencers, all people want to do is take photos for Instagram," they still have photos on their phone of their last trip to Japan. You, sir, are not above the desire to share your experiences with your friends. The frustration is very understandable, though. Like, some people really are so unself-aware. I get embarrassed taking photos in front of other people, which is why I'm always going to empty places. It's not 'cause I'm like dedicated or
that I don't like people. I'm just ashamed. But some people don't have that shame, and yeah, it's kind of annoying sometimes, I will say that. Another common idea that I see pop up online is that these places only become popular because influencers are promoting them and geotagging specific locations. Now, this is a topic that deserves its whole own entire video because it's so not a one-size-fits-all kind of situation, but from the research that I have read, sometimes yes, this is very clearly the case. But other times, there are usually enough barriers in place to stop it from ever getting overrun. Again, I'm obviously an influencer, I'm obviously very biased, but this
is just what I do. I try to be very careful about the locations I share that might have the potential to blow up online, especially in recent years. Like, in my head, I have this kind of like tipping scale that tells me whether or not I should post it right away, not post it at all, or just kind of be cautious. For example, if the location has locals that want tourism, they've got English support, there's good infrastructure, and it's really far away from the cities, post away. If it's very close to the city, very easily accessible with public transport, it's in like a delicate natural environment, and not much English support, maybe don't post it. If it's got
these two things but it's actually really far away and requires a car to get there, it'll probably be okay, but I got to use my best judgment based on, you know, many other factors. Sometimes I get worried that I'm going to like ruin a location by mentioning it on my channel, but I'm always comforted by the fact that I have recommended Kaou Onen multiple times on my channel, and yet every single time I go there, I am still the only one there. Like, in a country like Japan, access pretty much always wins, and I definitely do not subscribe to the idea that we should just stop sharing places altogether and stay in our lane. Don't enjoy nature, don't touch anything, because one, it's a very sad existence, and two, oftentimes experiencing the beautiful parts of the world is what gets us to start caring about it in the first place. I think if you ask anyone why they got into nature conservation or animal conservation or anything like that, they can probably link it back to some kind of experience that they had in nature with animals when they were younger. To me, I think it's very important that we go out and experience these things. I found this article recently that I feel like really encapsulates how I'm feeling around the whole topic in general, and it's about how some experts are critical even of the term "over-tourism" in itself, because they say, and I quote, "It's not a useful analytical concept for measuring mismanagement and directs attention only towards tourists rather than the facilitators of tourism, such as policymakers and license providers." And the final quote of this article
is amazing; I love it. It says, "The over-tourism problem will be solved through a clear-headed, collaborative, and case-specific assessment of the many drivers in action. Finally, ignoring historical precedents that have led to the current predicament of over-tourism and pinning this on oversimplified prescriptions abandons any chance of a more sustainable and equitable tourism future." If that is not a nuanced take, I don't know what is.
Now, this is obviously a really divisive topic, and while I have done a lot of research to get here, I am only one person. So if you think that there is something that I'm missing or like glossing over, please let me know in the comments. I'll be happy to honestly engage with people down below, as long as you are earnestly engaging with me. Social media aside,
based on my research, here are some actual solutions that have been suggested by experts, journalists, and a little bit by myself: Number one: The Japanese government needs to continue to advertise lesser-known places in the country, and I say "continue" because they're definitely already doing this, and it's working. But it is moving very, very slowly because, like I mentioned earlier, a lot of less touristy places need better access to encourage people to visit. Because if it's far away or it's really hard to get there, people will just not go. I have been on over 30 different tourism promo video trips for this channel or for my Instagram, and some places are really, really cool, but they're so inaccessible for the average tourist, and it can be really, really hard to recommend it sometimes when you've got to catch like four trains, a ferry, and a bus that only comes once a day. It's like, is it worth it at that point? I don't know.
No one was traveling to the Mount Fuji Lawson just to take a photo. It just so happened to be right at the main train station when they arrived. Access beats advertising every single time. Number two: They need to start charging separate rates for tourists and locals, particularly when it comes to hotels. Some areas of Japan are just well out of reach for the average Japanese person
or resident, and apparently, this is in talks at the moment. But since it would cause foreign residents of Japan, such as myself, to essentially have to like prove that we're not tourists, this could cause discrimination issues. Although honestly, I feel like most people wouldn't mind flashing their residence card if it meant they got a discount, but this would need to be subsidized by the government. Number three: On top of that, find a way
to refund the residents of Japan the tourism and accommodation tax that they're charged when they enter the country or stay at a hotel. I actually didn't realize that I was getting charged this until I booked a flight recently, and I checked the breakdown of fees for the flight, and one of them is the "tourist tax," and I was like, what? What? Number four: Severely limit the size of tour groups. Experts say that the two major forms of travel that are the most damaging to the locals' quality of life are cruise ships and very large tour groups. Cruise ships offer food on board and accommodations, so it's not uncommon for people to just like fill up on free food on board, they go into town for a few hours, take some photos, spend $0, and then head back to the ship to sleep at night. And a similar thing, similar kind of
thing, can happen with large tour groups. You're just less likely to spend as much money in the places that you go. So, it's all of the chaos and lack of space without any extra money coming in to support the community. So, by limiting tour group sizes, it spaces out the groups over the day, reducing bottlenecks in the area. Number six: They got to streamline ticket purchases for public transport. Man, it's so bad and so confusing, even as someone who lives here and speaks the language.
It's not bad everywhere, but it's definitely bad in some places. Chris and I flew back to Australia recently for Christmas, and at the Narita Airport/Station, where you need a transfer, if you bought a ticket online, you need to pick it up from like a very specific desk. And then, when you go to go through the gate, you need to put in your ticket and tap your squeaker, and there are so few instructions that tell you how to do this, which caused this like massive bottleneck of tourists. Like, everyone was trying to go through, there was only one of three gates
open, and everyone's got their suitcases because we're going to the airport. It was a nightmare, and it was the perfect example of the kinds of friction that really, really, really get grating to the locals after a while. Like, none of those people would have bottlenecked there if you could just tap your credit card on the gate like you can do in other countries. And this is apparently something that is in talks at the moment. I really, really hope that this can be, like, this can become widespread across Japan. I think it would be so,
so, so much smoother at places like this where a lot of people have to get through at all times, and everyone needs to know what the rules are. Number seven: This one is ambitious, I know, but I think, and I have suggested to JNTO personally, I think that they need to create some kind of media that teaches foreigners how to act and behave in Japan. It should be a video that's like welcoming and encouraging of tourists, yet it explains some like unwritten rules and like basic etiquette that you should be following. But crucially, this must be aggressively advertised. It's not enough to just like put it on the website. Like, it has to be shown to the people who need to see it, which are the people who won't do any research. I'm talking like paid advertisement on social
media, plaster it on billboards, put it on the train, or my suggestion, which is to have it played on the back of every screen in every plane as they land into Japan. Like, I don't know the logistics of making that happen. I'm sure it's very tough, but if Australian Customs can tell you to not bring dirty shoes into the country in 10 different languages, I'm sure Japan could give this a go. I know this is very ambitious, but it's absolutely possible, and this would need to be funded by the government. JNTO, if you're watching this, the offer is still on the table. I can make this video for you if you want. And lastly, for all of us who live here,
Japanese native or otherwise, we can write to the government and tell them our concerns. I know that there's like a sizable portion of my audience that are Japanese, and they watch these videos with the Japanese subtitles. Thank you so much for doing that. They cost me a lot of money, you make it all worthwhile. You can tell them about the problems I listed in this video or about any specific
problems that you face in your daily life. I know that sometimes it kind of feels like writing to the government, it's like not really going to do anything, but I guarantee you it's going to do a lot more than complaining on Instagram will. Japan is just such a special, unique, and really wonderful country that it's just so different to everywhere else in the world. Like, anyone who's ever stepped foot in this country, they want to have their main character Lost in Translation moment, and that's so fine. And I know that it's harder to do that when it's crowded,
and so we all try to like distance ourselves from others by saying, "They're the problem, not me. Kick them out." But that's not possible, it's not helpful, and it's only making us more frustrated when nothing else gets done. Wow, did I just explain all of the problems with social media? I know that the government is already working on promotion to lesser-known places, so who's to say that they're not already actively working on a number of other solutions to it? They probably are. I just wish that they were a little bit faster sometimes. Regardless, I am optimistic that help is on the way. Japan will be okay, everyone. I think we can all relax a little bit. I've done a bunch of research for this video, but this video is obviously shaped by my own personal opinions and biases, and I am just one person. So again, let me know your opinion on everything that I mentioned. You can like and subscribe for more thoughtful and hopefully nuanced takes
on Japan. Support me on Patreon, follow me on Instagram, and I will see you guys next time. Bye!
2025-03-09 18:38
