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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

#351

Post by the_af »

SoftTalker wrote: post #213
timr wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fully agree, whirlwind "see the major tourist attractions" sort of travel where you visit someplace for a couple of days or a week is not very interesting to me. Honestly travel in general is not very interesting to me. It's expensive, inconvenient, commoditized, cliche. But especially that sort of travel. I can see taking a break to go somewhere warm if you live in a place with long gloomy winters. Or going somewh…

Cool! So when will most jobs give you month-long (or more) vacations so that we mortals can do "proper" tourism?

> But going somewhere to just look around? Not attractive to me

What is there in life but looking around, learning new things and experiencing new stuff?

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

#352

Post by rectang »

hyghjiyhu wrote: post #298
gtowey wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pu…

There are so many humans that are blithely destructive and nearly all of them believe themselves to be good, because it is human nature to have faith in your own wholesome intentions. Overtourism is one area among many where we would be better off if more people at least considered their impact.

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

#353

Post by ddejohn »

Klonoar wrote: post #304
peab wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you experience this in Tokyo, you're dealing with the fact that it's a truly global city and you're not venturing off the tourist path enough. It's definitely still a thing in some parts of Tokyo to have few-to-no westerners. Kyoto was never going to be able to deal with the level of tourism that it's currently struggling with, though. My friends and I refuse to even stop there now - and I tried to get some friend…

> I tried to get some friends who visited recently to avoid it in favor of some other culturally significant spots

Any tips for somebody looking to visit Japan in the next year or so?

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

#354

Post by jacobgkau »

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…

> A matcha place I like only lets you order from the real menu after you’ve unlocked enough visits from a punch card.

What's the "fake menu" you have to order from before you unlock the real one? Or do you just have to swing by but aren't allowed to order anything? Compared to the others, it's hard to think of how this would necessarily help the business, aside from possibly disincentivizing people who are uncaring enough that their traffic would be bad but still care enough that they won't go there if they can't order something specific.

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

#355

Post by jacobgkau »

rectang wrote: post #352
hyghjiyhu wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pu…

There are so many humans that are blithely destructive and nearly all of them believe themselves to be good, because it is human nature to have faith in your own wholesome intentions. Overtourism is one area among many where we would be better off if more people at least considered their impact.

The ones who are going to heed your advice to minimize their existence are not the ones who need to hear it, generally. That mentality just punishes thoughtful people and will not reach the vast majority of the ones you believe are a problem.

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

#356

Post by jacobgkau »

jorvi wrote: post #269
KerrAvon wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not quite that simple. Your tourism money is valuable. It's a huge influx of money into the local economy. They don't want it to go to zero.

It literally is quite that simple. I can tell you from experience via friends and acquaintances that tourists are crushing the locals out of Barcelona and Amsterdam. And I expect the same to be true of Warsaw or Berlin. And its not just tourists. ASML has completely destroyed the housing market in the Brainport region. They're planning to hire 20.000 more people, but with The Netherlands currently being in one of the…

Japan closed their borders to tourists during COVID. If it's as simple as you say, then they can do it again.

They won't because you couldn't get a majority of their populace to agree with you, which doesn't necessarily mean it's incorrect but does at least mean it's not simple.

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

#357

Post by chihuahua »

jerryliu12 wrote: post #39

Have to say that I'm shocked that the local government hasn't cracked down on the Mario Kart stuff.

I agree. These go-karts are only street legal vehicles if the government agrees that they are street legal. If the government passes a rule that says go-karts are not street legal, they can be confiscated and destroyed as soon as they are spotted by the police. It seems that this problem could be easily solved.

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

#358

Post by bro_me »

SoftTalker wrote: post #231
cedws wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My home country, the UK, has already been through this cultural erosion which is why I respect Japan's right to defend its own. London in particular has become a place for everybody and at the same time for nobody. It's a city of people of different values and wavelengths with very little shared strata compared with Tokyo.

Funny to see this sentiment here but in the USA if a conservative-leaning politician talks about "preserving our culture" or saying that immigrants should "assimilate" they are accused of being a code-word (or even an overt) racist.

as an actual londoner, no, this guy is just being codedly racist too

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

#359

Post by EasyMark »

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…

Seems like a golden opportunity to be smart about it and use advertising to make less visited parts of cities tourist attractions. People want to experience Japan, but naturally focii will appear over time via positive feedback, you have to overcome that with advertising and promotions on the web via influencers and advertising. That seems like a government focus if they are really interested in doing something about it.

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

#360

Post by rectang »

jacobgkau wrote: post #355
rectang wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are so many humans that are blithely destructive and nearly all of them believe themselves to be good, because it is human nature to have faith in your own wholesome intentions. Overtourism is one area among many where we would be better off if more people at least considered their impact.

The ones who are going to heed your advice to minimize their existence are not the ones who need to hear it, generally. That mentality just punishes thoughtful people and will not reach the vast majority of the ones you believe are a problem.

Living an examined life and choosing actions in tune with your conscience is its own reward, not self-denial.

Staying home is not the only alternative to participating in the most destructive acts of overtourism.

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