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?
It sounds like you're a Brit who opened a pub in Spain for other Brits to get sloshed at. Is this wrong?
I think it is hard to explain to HN crowd whose most would like to run business to make most money possible in shortest time period and would not understand running business that just pays its bills and gets owner ramen profitable unless it is just a point on path to becoming unicorn.
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.
I have no idea what the fascination with Japan, I must have missed something.
Communism, on the other hand, seems to have led to more isolation in the Cold War era, and is also another way to cultivate some interesting cultural identity, although not necessarily the culture you want.
Taking photos in front of things is not, but that is not the only reason people travel.
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.
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
Seems a bit extreme just to avoid a plane ride.
people insist that they need "the BEST", so they hop on a plane to get the picture-perfect locale that they see online at the expense of hollowing out anything that is merely "pretty good".
You can't win. This is why folks travel in the first place.
Do you have proof of these red states re-legalizing discrimination, or repealing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (and/or Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990)?
I failed to find anything about this supposed upheaval of established legal statute after a quick google search.
Why do they keep electing people who are, and passing legislature that is, then?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Edit: The red text at the bottom says: この日本語が読める方は、 ご入店くださいませ = "if you can read this Japanese text, please come in"
Edit 2: just the original reddit post link then
However this is easily "beaten" by using circle to search -> translate on your smart phone.
Xenophobia, Japan: :)
1) most people wouldn’t bother to translate something with a fake translation right above it
2) why do people want to go places they aren’t welcome? It is good to let the locals have some things…
Those have existed long before tourism to Japan became common. Those signs were there when the vast majority of foreigners in Japan were English teachers and soldiers. Many tabehodai (all-you-can-eat) and most nomihodai (all-you-can-drink) places had them.
I think this is for economic/profit reasons.
I am not a strong drinker at all but I can drink 4-5 [X] sour but my Japanese friends were already well intoxicated with 1 or 2 beers...
It's such a contrast to USA, where I doubt that such a thing would even be legal. And also the bit about no tattoos. That's lawsuit city.
Aren't private businesses in the US allowed to deny access to their premises for any reasons? Seems like a weird thing to get sued over, I think in most places if you own the local, you get to decide who goes there, unless it's a place for government or similar.
Definitely not. This kind of discrimination is explicitly prohibited by federal civil rights law (Civil Rights Act 1964). It protects people regardless of their national origin (in addition to their skin color).
I don't think there's any place in America that would be illegal to bar entry based on the presence of tattoos.
This is why the signs are always phrased as "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone/any person".
As with most things though, this is just the minimum federal regulation and states will handle how far they take it differently. There are jurisdictions that wouldn't touch a "no tattoos" policy with a ten-foot pole at the risk of a lawsuit. While there are others that are more lax.
The sign itself is probably protected speech.
As for the policy, it is probably also legal here. Private businesses have broad rights to refuse individual customers without stating a reason.
Fabricating a legitimate business reason to deny service to a particular group of customers is usually trivial, as well. Proving it was fabricated for discriminatory reasons can be difficult.
That part is key. If they do state a reason, it could become a civil rights issue. The sign alone might not be enough to make a case, but it's a very good start.
They don't have to state a reason. The entire foundation of the common law system is to have a court decide intent; not be technically bound by your words.
It would only take showing a continued behavior of denying people in a discriminatory manner (e.g. 10% of your visitors are foreigners, but 95% of the people barred entry are in that group) to fine/sanction/shut down the business.
Yes, I agree. It becomes more difficult to infer intent without a stated reason.
Practically speaking, I think most civil rights lawsuits that are decided in the plaintiff’s favor are very, very explicit cases of discrimination. Someone was called a slur, someone was refused service violently, someone had racist iconography scrawled on their property. Yes, fines and sanctions then. Well, sometimes.
The ones who are clever about it never get to that stage. They don’t put up a sign saying “no foreigners,” they put up a sign saying “we speak english here,” “proud to be an american,” and etc. Confederate flags, military paraphernalia, the usual soft threats against the other.
Foreigners in particular are going to find it very difficult to interact with our justice system. A civil rights case that goes to trial is going to take much longer than the typical tourist visa allows. It’s going to be prohibitively expensive for the typical tourist to procure the services of a skilled lawyer.
These are going to be in places that are not heavily touristed even by other Americans. You're talking about places in the deep south; or in some survivalist community in Wyoming/Montana/etc. Not in Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc.
So there's no one to complain. If someone did, they would most certainly face some legislative action.
> Foreigners in particular are going to find it very difficult to interact with our justice system. A civil rights case that goes to trial is going to take much longer than the typical tourist visa allows. It’s going to be prohibitively expensive for the typical tourist to procure the services of a skilled lawyer.
There's two cases where foreigners would complain:
A) they are on a visa, in which case they have the capability and are available to do so (and tend to be a pretty outspoken group considering the trouble they went through to get the visa in the first place).
B) they are visiting friends/family, in which case the friends/family will complain due to discrimination their loved ones faced.
You're using extreme examples to prove it could happen, because you're being disingenuous (imo). No one is doubting it could happen, racist/exclusionist stuff happens all the time. The people in this thread are saying it's not a norm, and (more importantly) that it's not legal. It's quite easy to prove a trend of discrimination, especially if your bar is clad in known racist/nationalist-adjacent paraphernalia.
Or, in other words, just ask yourself this: there are racists and nationalists in LA, SF, Denver, NY, Miami, Seattle, Dallas, etc....so, if it's so easy to skirt the legislation, why do we not find these sorts of bars in places that people actually go to versus insular communities where people are unlikely to raise a fuss?
Is that supposed to imply that Japan has more culture, or that it needs more protection because it's 10x longer? Even if Japanese culture is 10x longer than American culture, it doesn't necessarily follow that there's less of it. Pop music and hollywood music might not be considered "culture" by snobs, but they're still culture, and arguably more plentiful and pervasive than Japanese culture.
* 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
That's nothing unusual in Japan, even Japanese people in Japan can't join a gym or get car insurance if they've got tattoos. They're serious about that stuff for a reason.
I just wore sleeves over them and although less comfortable than my normal gym attire it was fine.
I was denied access to an Onsen because I honestly forgot about the tattoo thing for a while but was able to find one that was tattoo friendly. They were not mean or anything they just informed me it was policy. Completely understandable given the history.
My tattoos are very noticeable though. Like you would never miss large forearm tattoos, so it's probably hard for them to overlook for them and let it slide even for a foreigner
eh? there's a stripping-down room in insurance offices?
do you have to submit nudes if you're buying insurance online?
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.
How long ago was that? It was certainly true in fairly large portions of the world, but there are plenty of places where, for as long as I can remember, you could pretty much expect to be scammed regularly. In many cases those scams would be for trivial (to visitors from wealthy countries) amounts of money, but it nonetheless often seemed like a large fraction of local economies would be driven by scamming tourists.
I think that the real recent change is that the “beaten path” of touristy areas has gotten larger.
To be clear: "scamming" is still thankfully uncommon in Japan. Getting ripped off in the tourist-trap way is the new development.
I don't know when it started exactly, but I lived there around a decade ago and it was rare then. The prices around tourist spots would always be elevated and world heritage sites often had a line of crappy souvenir shops, but you didn't see the same kind of fake "wagyu" and the like that you see everywhere today.
So, much like every restaurant that becomes popular, anywhere in the world?
No, but thanks for the spot-on imitation of an entitled foreign visitor. The insinuation that somehow it's the local people's fault that they don't want their quaint neighborhood restaurants to become McDonald's is indeed part of the problem.
Many restaurants in Japan (my friend's included) are quite obviously one-man, standing-room only operations. They weren't designed or intended to accommodate big groups of people, pulling huge rolling suitcases, ordering off menu, getting offended when the proprietor doesn't offer vegan/gluten free/snowflake options, and tons of other nonsense that goes along with serving tourist hordes.
I realize that you can't un-make the baby, and that Japan's government asked for this, but a lot of locals are still upset about this kind of stuff and I have empathy. Tourism inevitably turns anything authentic into a high-volume, Epcot-center version of itself. That might be fine if you're visiting, but it sucks if you live there.
But the thing I worry about, having never been there, is that I might get some good recommendations for out-of-the-way spots where there would be few if any other tourists, and take the time to go find them, only to be denied entry because I’m a foreigner.
you can still have that. I'm a fulltime traveller. the key is to stay in a place longer. I usually stay in a country for at least a month. that gives you time to meet and actually get to know locals. thats how you get invited to the really cool spots and get a view the daytripppers and resort goers don't get.
... if you're a full-time traveler that can afford to stay for months at a time. For the rest (the vast majority) of us, the GP comment is what we get.
That said, even for short-term tourists, Japan used to be kind of a miracle in terms of the quality and service you would get for the money. I know it sounds like hipster whining, but that time is in the past.
[1] My snobby hot-take is that if you can't travel this way you shouldn't do recreational international travel at all, unless it's to go to a luxury hotel and sit on a beach or something packaged like that. But I realize that this will not be a popular opinion.
Anyway, I disagree with you: Japan is still a miracle in terms of the quality and service you get for the money. I saw this many times over.
Perhaps not in Kyoto, or in the most touristed areas of Tokyo. Or in whatever random place got featured in some anime, or whatnot.
The article mentions Yamaguchi, Toyama, Morioka, etc., and I definitely agree -- there are tons of places off the tourist beaten-track, and any of them is worth a visit.
On my recent trip I was in Kobe, which unlike Yamaguchi etc. I expect the average HN reader has heard of. But even there, there was little trace of overtourism.
Alex Kerr lamented all the way back in 1993 (in his book Lost Japan) that Kyoto had essentially lost its soul. And if you go to the areas most commonly seen on Instagram and TikTok, that's probably partially true. But even in Kyoto, go off the beaten path a little, and you will find much to delight you!
I assume you mean "relative to other places" here, and in that sense, I agree. Japan is not yet entirely Epcot Center.
> Perhaps not in Kyoto, or in the most touristed areas of Tokyo. Or in whatever random place got featured in some anime, or whatnot.
Right, exactly. Except that I'm seeing this spread like cancer -- which it always does. Sort of like gentrification, the "authenticity seeking tourist" leaves Senso-ji a few blocks, and then before too long Kappabashi is no longer a functioning street of restaurant supply stores (instead becoming a dead zone of "japanese knife" and matcha retailers), and so on.
> But even in Kyoto, go off the beaten path a little, and you will find much to delight you
Yeah, I lived in Kyoto a decade ago, and I say that to my Japanese friends, too. The thing is, even vs. 2-3 years ago, the number of those authentic places is dramatically fewer. People have been complaining about tourism in Kyoto forever, but they're also not wrong.
Honestly travel in general is not very interesting to me. It's expensive, inconvenient, commoditized, cliche. But especially that sort of travel.
I can see taking a break to go somewhere warm if you live in a place with long gloomy winters. Or going somewhere to visit family, or to do something that just isn't available where you live (skiing or fishing trip or something like that). But going somewhere to just look around? Not attractive to me.
What's so hard to believe about that? Lots of places in the Netherlands don't accept cash (probably out of convenience).
I think I've encountered at most 1-2 restaurants in Japan that don't take cash, and none that don't at least accept credit cards.
Taxis, conbinis and restaurants all wanted cash.
Lots of ATMs (majority even) don't take western ATM cards, so you need to look out for JP/7-11/Citi? ones.
Delicate balance of keeping enough yen so you don't run out / have to go out of your way ATM hunting but also not head home with $100s in yen you don't need.
Most of the ticket vending machines do take cash, but if they wanted to eliminate tourists then that would be an easy change to make.
I would like to think there is somewhere in the United States, maybe in the Midwest, or West Virginia, there has to be someplace where there are decent hard-working Americans, who are not trying to scam each other.
My family is from the "decent hard-working" part of mid-America and I am the only one without a felony so whenever one of my relatives dies, I get their guns. It used to be the crime of choice was check fraud but now it's simple burglary and drugs.
I as a non-gang, non-dealing, tall middle aged white dude am safer in Baltimore than I am at the local gas station full of tweakers in "real" America.
West Virginia has the highest, by a lot, percentage of people on social security disability because their state doesn't have good welfare benefits. All of the decent folk figured out how to scam the government out of disability payments by lying about back and stomach pain.
In Wyoming County West Virginia >33% of all adults aged 18-64 are on disability. These aren't broken down coal miners they are normal, healthy, unemployed people.
My county? 6%.
The only parts of America where people aren't trying to scam each other are uninhabited.
Nobody will try to charge you the tourist rate because there isn’t one. There may be scammers and shady merchants operating in town but you will not be their primary target.
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 a lot of cases.
1. The extreme success of Japanese culture via media, specifically abroad. This wasn't just a thing that happened accidentally, it was in some sense planned for decades. See for example the Cool Japan initiative: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Japan
I haven't been to Korea, but I imagine that their tourism numbers have dramatically increased in the last decade due to k-pop, k-dramas, Squid Game, etc. – all of which have been deliberately used to promote the country's culture abroad.
2. Japan is one of the few countries in the world which has navigated modernity without essentially just becoming Westernized. Sure, there are many Western chains and technologies there, but there are also tons of social practices, attitudes, and other things which are very different from the Western world. Or at least they have the appearance of being very different to Western eyes.
This is why there are constantly weird thing in Japan articles on Reddit and HN: it's a place that has managed to navigate its own path in the modern world, rather than just adopting the typical neoliberal homogeneity route.
I'm not sure how Japan is not neoliberal or how this label relates to their culture. I think you are conflating neoliberalism with western pop culture more broadly?
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.
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.
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.
But seanmcdirmid in a sibling comment is likely correct, and I'm possibly wrong.
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.
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...
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
That may be true in Manhattan, but Japan has amazing, lovable chains. The fact that you are never far from a 7-Eleven, Family Mart, Coco Ichibanya, or Ichiran (and they are often open late if not 24 hours) is one of my favorite parts of Japan.
I am sure many of them would be a little upset, but I don't understand how this counts as "hurting" small businesses?
Oh hey, that was me! Small (internet) world, huh :)
Here there is the opportunity of a lifetime, and many Japan business are straight out rejecting the money that comes pouring in. Meanwhile Japan economy is the worst it's been in 40-50 years, and virtually every week there's articles about the bleak future. It's too frustrating seeing articles complaining about how business are closing down with no money, and at the same time how these people trying to give them money are being rejected.
Background: living in Japan 5-10 years, I'm from Spain so it's not "in my blood" to think about profit also, but heck it's just too surprising some times.
PS, I'm for reducing tourism overall here actually, I'm just baffled at Japanese rejecting money.
because not everyone cares firstly about money?
the article is quite clear, the woman wanted to open a business to serve her friends and locals
now she can't do that, and is understandably upset
Just a fashionable way to say you've been there and done that, and that you're above the hoi polloi.
Popular cities, and popular attractions within, are popular for a reason.
Reasons which typically don't include "can sustain infinite visitors"
I get it if your goal is not necessarily to make as much money as possible and just wanted to create some small, local, "underground" thing. As a small business owner myself, I can think of a few different ways you could accomplish that in spite of massive attention. I mean you can have certain days of the week where you're closed to the general public but patrons with a loyalty card can get in or something. That's just one idea; point is there are solutions.
So I tend to agree with you - this reeks of "we just don't like foreigners. They're ruining our business by being foreign."
My wife and I are about to open our first brick and mortar business and it would be our dream come true to get popular on TikTok and to be a tourist destination. Even though we are a small business in a trendy neighbourhood doing something rather niche that is [hopefully] going to attract a loyal local following.
They also have a vastly different culture with many possible faux-pas that one can make, which all tourists inevitably make, which they hate. I think they are unfair about this however
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?
I don't know what can be done about it though. Japan's economy is in trouble, and the tourist money helps and hurts at the same time. It creates tax revenue, yet inflates prices for locals. Japan's stumbling economy is a factor in itself of the tourism influx due to the weak yen.
In the next few decades I fear Japan is going to go through a difficult period of cultural erosion. It needs foreign workers and at the rate they'll be entering, they won't integrate to the level that the Japanese people want.
I'd like to think I'm one of the "15%" that the article describes - I go to great lengths to integrate despite not speaking a lot of Japanese. But deep down I know that I don't belong here, and that Japan would prefer to be a homogenous society without expats like me. And I hold no hard feelings toward them for that.
I think this is an important point that I am struggling to articulate. I actually like the fact that they "prefer to do things their way". When I was traveling there, it is clear that I stand out from my behavior. We might share the same skin color but I don't speak the language nor have the mannerism.
I don't fit, they don't know how to deal with me and that is fine. In fact, I would prefer it to be that way. I prefer Japan to be Japan. Of course there are societal issues that needs to be fixed but those are orthogonal to what I am talking about.
I honestly think the original culture is pretty much extinct. Very, very few of the incoming generation even desire to uphold and rekindle that culture. In fact, it is despised.
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.
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!
My rule now is when we travel somewhere, we look to see what all the viral places from TikTok, and then we don't go there unless the place holds some incredible cultural significance (ie. The Louvre, Sagrada Família, etc).
What we found is cities are usually filled to the brim with the kind of spots that get "TikTokked" but only a few select places actually go viral and attract all the attention. When you use the "viral places" as a guide of where NOT to go, you end up going down some paths that lead you to some really special experiences with practically no other tourists around.
Honestly, I give those a pass too. I don't want to go to Barcelona and exacerbate the problem of overtourism (same goes for Venice). Paris is doable of course, but there too I wouldn't consider the Louvre right now. Not with its employees holding strikes because of the overcrowding!
It's a big world, and there are plenty of places where I am welcome as a tourist. The experience is better in any case; I hate crowds.
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.
The main driver seems to be social media, obviously not unique to Japan but is really blatant. Tourists were chasing selfies and videos at iconic locations they’d seen online, rarely venturing beyond those well-known spots. This creates heavy congestion and puts strain on specific neighborhoods and landmarks. In the West, TikTok appears to be the biggest influence; among Chinese tourists, the app Xiaohongshu (Rednote) by plays a similar role. The result is a tourism culture shaped less by genuine interest or curiosity and more by curated photo ops.
Japan faces unique challenges in managing the surge in tourism. Despite the modern and cosmopolitan feel of its cities, the culture remains markedly different: socially conservative and culturally illiberal. Xenophobia and racial bias are not uncommon, and nationalist political voices have increasingly framed tourists as scapegoats for a range of domestic issues. At the same time, the country lacks sufficient infrastructure to support the growing number of visitors. In Kyoto, for example, the city’s bus system is frequently overwhelmed…you could almost argue that separate systems for locals and tourists are needed.
Many tourists also appear unprepared, I admittedly was completely unprepared for the weather. Japan is not an easy place to navigate culturally, and some visitors behave with surprising ignorance or entitlement, especially at temples and shrines. There’s a tendency to treat the country like a kind of Disneyland, an exoticized backdrop for social media content, rather than a living culture with its own rules, rhythms, and expectations. This contributes to growing resentment, particularly in a society where individuals are often viewed in terms of the groups they represent. One tourist’s behavior can easily become a reflection on all.
There’s no easy solution. But it’s clear that both travelers and destinations need to rethink their relationship. Tourism should be approached with more awareness, humility, and a willingness to engage with complexity, not just consume it.
Well said, but definitely not unique to Japan. Sadly, I notice this almost everywhere I go anymore. It's also why you read about someone falling down a cliff or waterfall taking a selfie once or twice a year now.
I don't have any idea what the solution is, but it definitely makes most sights worth seeing less enjoyable now.
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.
tonyhart7•3h ago