Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses

craigmod.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 512 posts

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

#191

Post by dumbledoren »

CalRobert wrote: post #6

Maybe travel is just too cheap and easy? I like the democratisation of globe trotting that has happened but it certainly has had negative consequences

'Globe trotting' has been 'democraticized' only for the top income earners from the high-income countries. The rest of the world is not able to globe trot. Combined with digital nomadism, golden visas et al, this 'democratization' is a new form of colonization in which the high CoL countries' people can literally buy out poorer countries' most desirable regions or set themselves up as an aristocratic elite on top of the locals.

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

#192

Post by guardiangod »

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".

Rome had been the center of the western world for 2000 years, and Paris for 400. You can't compare those "well-trodden" cities to Kyoto, which was relatively secluded from tourists until the invention of jet airliners.

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

#193

Post by slillibri »

hamandcheese wrote: post #28

> Only psychopaths love Manhattan because of Duane Reade. 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.

Don't forget Yoshinoya, Sukiya, or Cafe Gusto.

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

#194

Post by diggan »

HelloMcFly wrote: post #96
diggan wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You may deny entry based on your own criteria provided you are not discriminating on race, color, religion, national origin, disability status, veteran status, age (more wiggle room here) or other state-specific traits (sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, etc.). I don't think there's any place in America that would be illegal to bar entry based on the presence of tattoos.

So it would be legal to bar non-US residents then? "Residency" seems different from all the criteria's you listed.

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

#195

Post by diggan »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #89
diggan wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> deny access to their premises for any reasons 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).

"National origin" is what country you are born in right? So banning non-US residents would be OK it seems?

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

#196

Post by blackguardx »

_fat_santa wrote: post #122

I live in Colorado and we have a similar issue (though not nearly to the scale of Japan). The line about getting "TikTokked" really struck a chord because there have been a few places that have fallen to the same fate, spots that the locals only knew about are now filled to the brim with both locals and tourists from out of state. My rule now is when we travel somewhere, we look to see what all the viral places from…

I also live in Colorado and have noticed the same thing lately. A state park near me gets slammed with tourists but there isn't much to do there unless you like hiking up steep trails or rock climbing. Most folks seem to drive in, walk around for 30 minutes, and then leave.

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

#197

Post by androidoka »

jayd16 wrote: post #183
returningfory2 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Seems like if you smile and act friendly and dumb and American you get a lot of slack along with the Japanese shopkeeper version of an eye roll and a headpat.

This is a part of the issue, knowing the rules but nonetheless not following them. And then — culturally unaware — thinking it's ok because nobody says anything.

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

#198

Post by os2warpman »

supportengineer wrote: post #184
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…

Is there any place you can go to avoid Scam culture? Anywhere at all? It seems pervasive. 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.

>maybe in the Midwest, or West Virginia

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.

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

#199

Post by smelendez »

supportengineer wrote: post #184
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…

Is there any place you can go to avoid Scam culture? Anywhere at all? It seems pervasive. 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.

If you go as a tourist to a place in the US that doesn’t get a lot of tourists, like a small Midwest city, people will happily give you recommendations of things to see and do. The same if you go in a neighborhood bar or coffee shop in a big city neighborhood that’s not overtouristed.

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.

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

#200

Post by impendia »

timr wrote: post #177
cultofmetatron wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

I used to live in Japan in 1999-2001, and I was just there again for a month this summer.

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!

Post reply on HN