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Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses

craigmod.com

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

#291

Post by IncreasePosts »

ddejohn wrote: post #118
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…

> you can still have that ... 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.

Nah, you don't have to be full time. You just need to figure out what to do based on not Instagram/tiktok.

It also helps if you rent a car so you can get to places that aren't accessible to most tourists unless they put in a lot of effort

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

#292

Post by chasd00 »

returningfory2 wrote: post #282
pm215 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I feel like tourist places are “weirdly concentrated” as you put it. When I was Florence the center was obviously super busy, but walking only 15 minutes in one direction there seemed to be almost no tourists around (of course, the area I was in didn’t have any sights). It made me think that maybe there’s a bias to the feeling of overtourism because people think about the one part of the city where all the tourists a…

New Orleans Louisiana is like this, walk down Bourbon street and it's packed with tourists but turn and walk perpendicular to Bourbon street for 2 blocks and you're all alone.

/this is a joke, don't do this.

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

#293

Post by gherkinnn »

timr wrote: post #57
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…

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…

> There's also Google Maps and Yelp vs. Japan's local version (pretty much any review on the former two are useless, and hopelessly biased by clueless tourists).

I do not understand why one would even look at tourist reviews for "authentic Japanese jalapeños" or whatever on Gmaps. But people do so what do I know.

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

#294

Post by tmtvl »

patrickscoleman wrote: post #260
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…

Even as a foreigner who speaks Japanese, I frequently got the "we're closed" and crossing the hands in an X response while locals continued eating. Sometime they'd laugh and I'd hear "gaijin" (rude slang for foreigner) as I walked out. But plenty of places were super warm and friendly after the initial apprehension if you speak Japanese and read some kanji. Worth the effort!

If I remember correctly, gaijin is just how you say 'foreigner' in standard Japanese. The rude slang is jingai.

And I also have the experience of people really appreciating it if you actually speak and read Japanese. Which makes sense, I can easily imagine it being a relief to find that you can just speak with someone normally instead of having to struggle with this absolutely bonkers weird language that one may be only vaguely familiar with.

I can imagine that people in, say, the United States wouldn't be very happy if I went around and only spoke Dutch.

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

#296

Post by School-Cotton »

timr wrote: post #220
biztos wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, I’ve seen a lot of “visit Japan” ads lately. 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.

> 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. Yep, that's the part I hate, too. The locals put up completely understandable roadblocks to preserve their own culture, but those roadblocks end up making the wh…

Telling someone “just speak Japanese and blend in!” is sort of an absurd suggestion. That is impossible if you’re not East Asian and even if you are, it would take years of study.

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

#297

Post by Klonoar »

returningfory2 wrote: post #180
deaddodo wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Replace foreigners with "white" and you're more or less spot on.

I know far too many non-Japanese-asian people who get held to the standards applied to Japanese people - not even over tattoos, but things like language, cultural understandings, etc. The aspect of this with white people is where the infamous "gaijin smash" came from.

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

#298

Post by hyghjiyhu »

gtowey wrote: post #245
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 think it's worse than that. I'm starting to think that there may not really be an ethical way to be a tourist in a foreign country. Especially coming from a high cost of living area to a lower one. Just being there puts you in economic competition with the locals. You can spend more on everything than everyone else and that raises their costs too. Especially housing and food. Those fancy resorts take all the prime…

Your fallacy is that you are implicitly thinking of yourself as an intrinsically evil corrupting force that should be minimized as much as possible, in fact it would be better if you didn't exist at all.

This is a very bleak misanthropic view that isn't true. It's possible to be a force for good. To form a symbiosis where each side benefits from the other. If you see a native resident, do you think he is perfectly pure, content and happy? Or does he have his troubles and issues. How can you help him? Entertain? Teach? Trade?

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

#299

Post by michaelt »

diggan wrote: post #194
HelloMcFly wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sometimes I believe one can also face legal trouble for unreasonably banning things strongly correlated with a protected characteristic.

I can’t sidestep gender discrimination law by refusing to hire people with long hair, unless the job is something like “wig model” or “Jeff bezos impersonator” where being bald is a bona fide occupational qualification.

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

#300

Post by s1mon »

I've been aware of Craig Mod from a distance for a while, and from what I've seen of his books and other works, he's very thoughtful and deeply sensitive to culture, but somehow it seems pretty hypocritical to write this when his most recent book is essentially a travelogue about obscure places in Japan. Of course the Tik Tok generation is not likely to be reading his books, but he is in effect adding to the load on locations which may not be ready for them.

I was in Japan in 1996 back when a Lonely Planet guidebook was the best authentic reference for western travelers. People decried guidebooks' impact then and now. It's hard to do travel ethically in places that aren't ready for it. This isn't just about Tik Tok. As individuals, we each have to consider our impact culturally, economically, and environmentally.

The solution isn't no tourism, because tourism encourages more global awareness and cross-cultural communication. It also adds to the economy. However, places that are filled with tourists and no locals aren't much fun for most people, local or tourist. It has to be a balance.

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