Is Over-Tourism Ruining Japan??

People treat Japan like its some alien world with its entirely unique set of morals. Most of the time if you're well behaved at home that same behaviour will be good enough there. Just don't get goofy because you're on vacation.

I agree with Connor that while nobody is entitled to go to their country, Japan can be A LOT better at managing things and making new solutions rather than just getting rid of certain things and spots altogether that attract tourists in the first place

Japan is the textbook definition of suffering from success

"stop giving me so much attention" -Japan

This is only tangentally related to this, but remember when China released a book for their own citizens detailing dos and donts for visiting other countries? That was funny.

Tourists are super easy to avoid in japan because they only go like 3 places tokyo, kyoto, and osaka. If you go places like Hokkaido or the western coast you see next to no tourists. Not to mention tourism in japan is really not that bad. In 2023 japan had 25 million international tourists and is projected to pass 31 mill in 2024. For comparison colorado in the usa (a stste of 5 million) recieves 38 million tourists per year. It just feels like japan in over touristed because they all go to the same handfull of places.

We have Kama'aina discount in Hawaii where we just need to show a Hawai'i drivers license to get the discount or cheaper price. If Japan had a way for people to prove their residency, like a drivers license, passport, etc They could get the cheaper price that way. People might complain, but we've had it in Hawai'i for at least 30 years, probably longer.

It also doesnt help that the majority of foreigners are intrigued in Japan is because of all the Japan-tubers/ influencers that capitalize on the country by producing content like "I paid 200$ for A Micro Tokyo Apartment!" "I Rented A Boyfriend For A Day!" "I Visited A Yaoi Cafe!" "I spent 48 Hours Around Tokyo!" Thats probably the reason why within the past few years, there have been streamers/idiots visiting Japan and making it a country thats for wacky/goofy adventures with no care for the law.

This discussion coming out while I’m on vacations visiting Japan for 3 weeks 😂

This is probably unrelated, but Sydney has Lockout laws for more than a decade screwing tourism and local business over, all because the government decide they want to stop drunken brawls in the streets. Shutting popular places down to people isn't a unique thing specifically only to Japan.

I agree with Connor on this one. Japan advertise tourism so much; they have a Twitter account (Chiitan) who is a God of promotion for the country. I obviously think people should be respectful of other people's cultures but there has to be some middle ground. I've visited Japan recently and the locals I met were so nice and welcoming. but then I get online and Youtubers and Blogs are like "They hate you all" Another thing Connor is right about is Japan is VERY capitalistic even if people don't like to think so. There they should be smarter and not so heavy handed with their decisions. importantly if you are thinking about visiting Japan don't let this scare you off. It's as great as you hear, just try to learn as many small and big things about how to be respectful as possible because it is important but the people I met where nice enough to teach me when I did mess up. if you care you'll pick the stuff up fast.

When I was in high school, I was a huge Jpop fan, but none of it was on Youtube and you couldn’t buy it directly from Japan. You had to buy CDs through someone who had a Japanese address or who visited Japan often. Tons of foreign fans supported artists this way, and yet we were essentially told to stop because eventually Oricon said, “Overseas sales won’t count toward the charts anymore,” which made no sense. So fans who would LOVE to support the artists even with NOTHING given to us unless we found our own way, were cast aside. They also said, “Well, no one outside of Japan probably likes this music,” like HUH??? They made it impossible for no reason. Why not just put the music on streaming platforms, on youtube, sell CDs online??? But no - they wanted to be dumb and exclude everyone like that. Absolutely bananas. Kpop did the opposite - the GOVERNMENT of Korea allocated funds to make Korean media popular, they sold merch, put everything on youtube, promoted dramas in other countries, had songs in English some of the time, and made an effort to get Kpop culture off the ground, and it worked. Meanwhile, Japan is still doing it the old way, which hasn’t worked and is such a waste.

Whats appealing of japan is how encompassing the politeness and teamwork is for the natives, no one else does it like this. If you tried to move the way you would in japan in literally any other country you would get hurt really bad

Kind of, if ruining Japan means 0.1% of Tokyo and Kyoto and 0.001% of the country. All you have to do is go like 3 streets over in Shibuya, or just plain go to Ikebukuro and most of the tourists are gone. Let alone going to some random Yamanote Line station. Let alone 2 blocks out from some random TOEI station. Let alone going out to the suburbs. Can't they figure out how to spread the tourists out more besides making people stop buying the JR pass so they'll just stay in Tokyo and Kyoto? Can't they figure out how to get the tourists to not go to the same few areas? Can't they figure out how to get the tourists to spread out a bit more in the areas they do go to? Tourists aren't all over. In Tokyo they're basically just in a tiny little section of Shinjuku, Shibuya, Akihabara, and Asakusa. Basically everywhere else it's just a few tourists here and there. I went in the Saizeriya in Asakusa and it was literally just Japanese people. The tourists were all waiting in line for gyuukatsu.

do you guys remember the Chinese tourist who craved his name into the pyramids? Tourists act like idiots everywhere. Feels like they just want to shut down again. live in a bubble.

The other problem with this is a lot of tourism industries in Japan will just straight out die. Japanese people in their limited free time are not going to take a traditional Japanese tea ceremony class, a dress up as a samurai class experience, where you get to cut stuff with a katana. Or that Japanese amusement park experience where you get to be a ninja. Not to mention the traditional Japanese archery classes along with the traditional calligraphy classes all of this stuff is tourist crap. Normal Japanese people are not doing this. These industries will die without tourism.

My friend who lives in Setagaya-ku said that the local govt is closing the nearby park for the entire summer to prevent kids playing in the park from getting heatstroke. Problem solving <<< Risk avoidance

Being such a fascinating country with insane popculture fandom will attract so many different people. The fact that the Yen is now in such a bad spot, it does attract the not so great tourists... . I went last year, prepared so hard to know the customs of the japenese, learned a bit to get around, and spend so much time to be respectful to the culture and yet i was shocked to see so many people just being impolite and rude to the japanese... i was so sickend to say the least. Respect the culture of any country before you set foot their, they may have a starbucks, netflix, etc. . That doesn't mean they live on your rules. Still highly recommend visiting Japan it's incredible and the food is just godtier.

I live in a coastal town that suffers from over tourism and can confirm it is awful. I don't know what it is about people that make them think its ok to trash places they're visiting, act over entitled and not respect the people who live there.

I am glad to hear a nuanced opinion that doesn’t glorify Japan or Japanese people, each mega city in the world feels divided about tourism now that it’s become accessible for many, Barcelona recently banned Airbnb apartments altogether