Japan Struggles to Find Solutions to Overtourism
Residents of tourist hotspots in Japan are expressing their frustration as overtourism causes congestion and creates safety hazards.
By Jay Allen
As tourism to Japan ramps back up, many businesses are smiling. But residents in traditional and trending tourist hotspots are fuming. They say that “overtourism” is pushing them off of public transit and making daily life difficult. Here’s how Japan’s national and local governments are responding — and what you can do to help.
From no tourists to “no more tourists”
Overtourism isn’t a new concern in Japan. We wrote back in 2019 about how some stores were refusing to serve non-Japanese (or, at their more charitable, non-Japanese speakers) because of a lack of foreign language-capable staff. The government had also instituted a 1000 yen (appr. $7) “sayonara tax” on airfare tickets to help improve tourist experiences.
Of course, this was all before an international health crisis in 2019 derailed travel everywhere. The pandemic upended, not…
