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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

#401

Post by anigbrowl »

typewithrhythm wrote: post #370
m_a_g wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London isn’t an example of cultural erosion—the pie has simply grown. The same applies to New York. Diverse cultures enrich London; they add to it rather than diminish it.

Absolutely absurd. Why is it people feel the need to make out that western cities are somehow magically immune from the exact same detrimental effects that they happily accept about everywhere else? "Enrichment" is a buzzword for the insulated elite happy that they have new things on their lunch menu, somehow ignoring all the negatives that come with it.

I can't help observing that Britain established a global empire (so vast in scope that they could truthfully say the sun never set upon it, until quite recently) and made it clear to the countries they colonized that Britain, and particularly England, was the center of civilization. We're surrounded by the artefacts of this empire, from Imperial measurements in the USA to Greenwich Mean time being the default timezone to which all others are calibrated.

If you establish a vast trading empire, and tell the often surprised new inhabitants of it that the empire requires their spices/ silks/ slaves, can you really be surprised that the more enterprising and adventurous colonised people gravitate toward the point of origin? Is it some sort of mystery that there should be more people from Algeria and Congo in France, or why there are so many Indonesian people in the Netherlands?

I feel a similar perplexity about many people in the USA making loud complaints about cultural adulteration despite a good quarter of the land having previously been part of Mexico and this being reflected in most of the place names (to take but one example). Some commentators object with an absolute straight face to hearing so many people speaking Spanish in cities with names like Los Angeles.

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

#402

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#403

Post by anigbrowl »

ddejohn wrote: post #353
Klonoar wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Buy an old-fashioned guide book instead of using the internet, the consumer parts of which are an advertising machine that inexorably trends towards the lowest common denominator.

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

#404

Post by lpedrosa »

School-Cotton wrote: post #296
timr wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Then you don't go "off the beaten path" and instead stick to the tourist friendly places.

Demanding the locals to accommodate your lazyness is basically shouting "I'm entitled".

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

#405

Post by the_af »

timr wrote: post #392
the_af wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My snobby hot-take is that if you can't travel this way you shouldn't do recreational international travel at all That's a bad take, because it means if you're not rich or a hippie backpacker without attachments, you cannot do international travel. What's worse, many of these issues affect local tourism within your own country as well (ruining places for the locals, lots of tourist traps sprouting, etc). So effecti…

> So effectively the advice becomes "stay at home, don't vacation, or if you do vacation stay at some prepackaged place". I didn't expect it to be a popular take, but I feel like the "sightseeing travel" model is varying degrees of bankrupt, and I'm not apologizing for my opinion. Having lived in a number of tourist hotspots in my life, I've come to the conclusion that almost nothing one encounters in a tourist setti…

It's not Disneyland, what's with the mania of taking everything to extremes?

> You don't have to do a "prepackaged vacation", but do something more substantial than moving around constantly and looking at stuff through a camera -- volunteer, take a course, attend a conference, teach English...whatever! Just go there for a reason other than "being a tourist".

The hell? We're discussing vacationing, not volunteer work. Teaching English? It's not my native language, why would I? I already have a job where I live, and I responsibilities here. Volunteer work? My country needs it way more than wealthy Japan, why would I go there?

What's wrong with tourism, seeing Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto? I don't get more than 2 weeks vacation where I work, I should use them to volunteer according to you?

I swear, the first world entitlement in some of these comments... like yours...

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

#406

Post by timr »

School-Cotton wrote: post #296
timr wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I didn't say "speak Japanese" (I said try to use the language, which is just table stakes for visiting a country), and it should go without saying that you cannot change your race.

You can still blend in far more than most tourists do by a) watching the people around you, and b) being a little bit self-conscious.

It's absolutely astounding how much tourists stand out in Japan (or Paris, or London, or New York...), and it's mostly about their behavior and clothing. Ten minutes of internet research and a little bit of introspection would go a long way to solving both problems.

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

#407

Post by BobaFloutist »

diggan wrote: post #365
BobaFloutist wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that I think about it a better quibble is that you probably can't get around anti-discrimination laws by posting a sign that says "No Canadians or Americans that have spent too long in Canada."

As I understand it, it'd be illegal even with just "No Canadians" because that's a "national origin" right? Instead you'd post "No Canadian Residents" and you'd be in the clear :)

But no Canadian residents is equivalent to what I put above, and the actual impact of the discrimination is the problem, not the wording.

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

#408

Post by sisosooss »

anigbrowl wrote: post #401
typewithrhythm wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely absurd. Why is it people feel the need to make out that western cities are somehow magically immune from the exact same detrimental effects that they happily accept about everywhere else? "Enrichment" is a buzzword for the insulated elite happy that they have new things on their lunch menu, somehow ignoring all the negatives that come with it.

I can't help observing that Britain established a global empire (so vast in scope that they could truthfully say the sun never set upon it, until quite recently) and made it clear to the countries they colonized that Britain, and particularly England, was the center of civilization. We're surrounded by the artefacts of this empire, from Imperial measurements in the USA to Greenwich Mean time being the default timezon…

[flagged]

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

#409

Post by anigbrowl »

wavemode wrote: post #330
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…

> But deep down I know that I don't belong here, and that Japan would prefer to be a homogenous society without expats like me. And I hold no hard feelings toward them for that. I get what you're saying, but I also marvel at how completely contrary this is to the "freedom of movement" ethics of the West. I mean, someone who holds this same opinion in Europe or America would be considered a Neo-Nazi.

I think you are laboring from behind a few very common blind spots.

First, Japan is an island nation, and historically a somewhat isolated one (due to weather patterns rather than distance). Islands are fundamentally different from continents, anthropologically, lexically, strategically.

Second, 'the West' has historically been very expansionist; because of its continental configuration, there have been many, many waves of migration and military conquest, and the development of global navigation and seafaring vessels during the Renaissance made for a centuries-long outward expansion.

Third, this sort of expansionism has being going on in the Asia-Pacific region over even longer timescales and there are very different discourses with many contentious points of view if you include Japanese, Korean, Chinese and other perspectives.

On general anthropology, maybe try JAred Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel or for a more academic take, Azar Gat's War in Human Civilization. For the history of Japan, Mason & Caiger's History of Japan is comprehensive without being a huge study commitment.

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

#410

Post by wisty »

I think this is just overblown?

I went to Japan in 2019, before the pandemic, the previous peak and not far off the current numbers of tourists.

Maybe I went at a quiet time, but white people were as rare as hens teeth. There are 37 million a year. Australia has 7 million and Sydney is a lot smaller than Tokyo. There's way more Japanese tourists in Japan than foreigners, every tourist trap I saw was jam packed with locals.

I think it's all just a tiny handful of small places that are tiktok famous. This is not a Japan problem, it's a problem for a single conbini near Fuji and a couple of bars.

There's also a bunch of social media outrage over a handful of rude tourists. This is not a problem with Japan, it's a made-up problem on social media.

Go to the Vatican or Bali if you want to see a tourist problem.

Show me a picture of Americans overrunning Ueno Park or Disney and I'll change my mind, but I've never seen a picture of a large number of foreign tourists in Japan, just a few tourists being annoying, with almost everyone around them being Japanese.

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