In news that seems to fly in the face of overtourism reporting about Japan, the island nation is setting itself a goal to more than double current foreign tourist arrivals, its tourism commissioner has announced at a Tokyo briefing.
Google tourism in Japan and the word “overtourism” is bound to appear near the top of the search results. The weak yen has drawn in visitors looking for a bargain break and post-Covid revenge travel has contributed to visitor figures swollen by people making their long-awaited trips to the Land of the Rising Sun.
This has culminated so far in Japan welcoming three million visitors per month now for three consecutive months. But the tourist numbers seen in recent years have brought with them littering, noise, overcrowding, damage, and anti-social behaviour, effects that have, in turn, brought about various attempts to combat the scourge.
Tourist taxes have been introduced at famous shrines, and charges have been brought in at Mount Fuji’s most popular walking trails. Night spot districts in Tokyo are seeing street drinking restrictions and barriers are being put up at beauty spots to deter over-zealous photographers. Rules about etiquette around geishas have had to be posted on some Japanese streets.
So what is tourism commissioner Ichiro Takahashi thinking when he announces a plan to go from 25 million tourists a year to 60 million? Part of the strategy will be diversification and spreading footfall, with efforts to divert tourists from some of the most overwhelmed attractions, towards lesser-known regions and undiscovered gems, top of the agenda he explained.
“It is a figure that we can very much achieve by making the right efforts,” he told the capital. “There are still many little-known places in Japan that are left unexplored by tourists from overseas – I believe Japan has infinite tourism resources.”
That sentiment might not be shared by officials at the Hyogo Prefecture attraction and World Heritage site, Himeji Castle. A huge influx of tourists there is causing overtourism concerns, with wear and tear on infrastructure as well as on residents, as local mayor Hideyasu Kiyomoto explained. Some resources are far from infinite: “A wooden structure will be worn out and become more brittle after many people climb up and down”.
Plans are therefore afoot at Himeji to quadruple the entry price for foreign visitors, in a two-tier pricing strategy that is starting to emerge among other sites and businesses, keen to retain local goodwill and rebalance the books.
