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Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses

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Re: Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses

#171

Post by [deleted] »

pm215 wrote: post #65
bryanlarsen wrote: post #23

Tourism in Japan is still pretty low compared to traditional tourism hot spots like Paris or Rome. As is usual, it's the relative change that is significant rather than the absolute numbers. The change from "almost none" to "some" affects a place more than the change from "a lot" to "even more".

It also felt to me to be weirdly concentrated in particular small areas. I spent a few weeks in various places in northern Japan which varied from "very quiet" to "tourists but not too many"; but in Tokyo, Akihabara was absolutely heaving with tourists (in a way it wasn't five years ago). And even in Tokyo just getting a little way away from the hotspots you could find beautiful but quiet places still. So I agree wit…

[deleted]

Re: Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses

#172

Post by TimorousBestie »

deaddodo wrote: post #149
TimorousBestie wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's such a contrast to USA, where I doubt that such a thing would even be legal. 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 fabricate…

> Private businesses have broad rights to refuse individual customers without stating a reason. 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 ent…

> 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.

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.

Re: Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses

#173

Post by peab »

cedws wrote: post #116

I live in Tokyo at the moment. I get the overtourism thing, because after you've been here even just a little while (months) you start to have a disdain for tourists that do tourist things. Like breaking the rules, being a nuisance, swarming parts of the city. 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, y…

I get it too. I visited japan recently and in the main touristy spots (tokyo and kyoto), it felt like there were more westerners then japanese. I felt bad.

Re: Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses

#174

Post by mock-possum »

paulgerhardt wrote: post #14

Missed opportunity to talk about the locals creative responses to this. 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 physi…

Ugh the ‘no tattoo’ discrimination thing really bugs me.

Re: Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses

#175

Post by harimau777 »

parpfish wrote: post #142
harimau777 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something that I feel doesn't get discussed in a lot of these sorts of discussions (overtourism, local food, etc.). Reducing your carbon/social footprint by consuming locally is MUCH more enjoyable in some locations than in others.

if you find your local region unenjoyable, change your local region

Often that's not an option. E.g. due to where family lives, where you can find a job, or simply not being able to afford to move.

Re: Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses

#176

Post by harimau777 »

DaSHacka wrote: post #155
harimau777 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of those tiny locations all over the US are in red states. Lots of people aren't going to want to go to locations where public infrastructure has been hollowed out and discrimination is legal.

> and discrimination is legal. 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.

https://www.iowapublicradio.org/state-government-news/2025-0...

Re: Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses

#177

Post by timr »

cultofmetatron wrote: post #87
timr wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about the Ramen place (I can't believe that they wouldn't take cash?), but I agree with you that more places are doing this kind of "two markets" stuff -- it's even becoming official, in that now there's officially sanctioned "foreigner pricing" for certain temples, shrines, and parks. There's also Google Maps and Yelp vs. Japan's local version (pretty much any review on the former two are useless, and h…

> 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 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…

Yes, I agree that it's a better way to travel if you can do it, but most people can't [1].

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.

Re: Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses

#178

Post by ozim »

jerlam wrote: post #152
anonzzzies wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in Spain (where people, imho wrongfully, think tourism is ruining everything) and I dont see the issue; my wife and myself make enough in the summer to not have anything to do the rest of the year. I have IT businesses which I scale back to run the pub in summer for 3 month. I don't really care about whatever they do as long as it is not fighting: the more drunk and loud they are, especially guys with girls, the…

My impression of these Japanese small businesses is that many are run purely as lifestyle businesses and making more money isn't the point. They're run for the owners to feel a sense of accomplishment and ownership and give something back to the community. There is no desire to close the business and go on vacation, especially if it means being very aggravated when they are opened.

This sounds like best description.

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.

Re: Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses

#179

Post by gruez »

lofaszvanitt wrote: post #141
VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no foreigners 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.

You have to protect your culture. USA has a 250 year history while Japan has 10x of that.

>USA has a 250 year history while Japan has 10x of that.

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.

Re: Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses

#180

Post by returningfory2 »

deaddodo wrote: post #133
paulgerhardt wrote: post #14

Missed opportunity to talk about the locals creative responses to this. 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 physi…

> That said, they’re serious about “no entry” if you have tattoos. 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 some cases.

Indeed, but in my experience many of these places have an unspoken sub-rule that the tattoo rule is not enforced for foreigners.
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