In case you haven’t heard, Japan has a lot of tourists — more than ever, in fact.
The first half of 2024 saw 17.78 million foreign tourists travel to the country, eclipsing the previous six-month record of 16.63 million from 2019. Alongside this surge in overseas visitors, however, the reported ills of overtourism have similarly spiked: From an entry ban in certain parts of Kyoto’s Gion district and the introduction of fees to climb Mount Fuji, it seems each week brings new news on how Japan is — or isn’t — dealing with its popularity on the global stage.
But why does Japan seem flooded with tourists all of a sudden? One obvious answer is social media.
According to a 2022 Japan Travel Agency survey, 21.9% of visitors report using a social media site or influencer content to help plan their trip to Japan. The hashtag #japantravel has been used 5.9 million times on Instagram, far more than other East Asia-related tags like #koreatravel (1.4 million) and #chinatravel (909,000). This reliance on social media is even more pronounced with younger generations: A 2024 study found that 57% of Gen Z and millennials rely heavily on social media recommendations for travel destinations.
So exactly who are these content creators introducing Japan to the world’s tourists one clip at a time? And when it comes to overtourism, do they see themselves as contributing to the problem or fighting against it?
To Lynne Karina Hutchison, a Tokyo-based influencer active on Instagram and TikTok who shares videos on her life as a half-Scottish, half-Japanese resident, content creators like her are a link in a much larger chain.
“Creators are the bridge between (traditional tourism organizations) and the people,” says Hutchison, 29. “It can be really hard to cover everything in a video that is normally under 60 seconds, so Reels (Instagram’s short-form videos) and TikToks are just a springboard to direct those who want to learn more to other platforms.”
Where today’s successful Japan-based content creators differ from old-fashioned tourism agencies might be as simple as a better grasp of their audiences. Tokyo-based, American-born creator Lina Takahashi mostly posts about Japanese cuisine and believes it's the personal approach influencers like her take that resonates with today’s prospective tourists.
“People enjoy seeing the first-person perspective,” says Takahashi, 25. “You get to feel like you're actually traveling with the person even if you're halfway across the world.”
Critics may argue that foreign content creators contribute to overtourism by focusing on locations already inundated with tourists and that a better use of their platforms would be highlighting lesser-known destinations. Tokyo-based, German Japanese Naomi Kato and Osaka-based, Italian-born Mariachiara Paggioro say that leaning away from these trends leads to posts that tend to not perform well or reach large audiences. Moreover, viewers often reach out directly and ask them to make future posts centered around Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto.
“It is hard to admit, but videos about (Universal Studios Japan), for example, or Kyoto, or the main cities, get more attention than videos showing lesser-known spots,” says Paggioro, 27.
“Informative and easy-to-digest content such as ‘five things to eat in Osaka’ tends to do well,” adds Kato, 31.
Of course, a large component of the complaints surrounding overtourism is not just the number of tourists coming to Japan but also the occasional problematic behavior of those visitors: crowding locations for photos, leaving litter in their wake and recording videos in inappropriate places. Part of this, Paggioro says, is a consequence of content creators who use tricks of the trade (such as filming extremely early in the morning) to post videos that represent popular sites — like the Kawaguchiko convenience store with a now-blocked view of Mount Fuji — as bereft of other tourists.
“Tourism ... is getting a bit superficial,” Paggioro says. “People don't really seem to care about the country itself — they want the famous spots to take pictures, but they don't really care about the culture, the history or what these places are about."
For whatever negative effects foreign-facing content creators in Japan may be having on the current surge in overseas tourists, placing blame entirely on them is an imperfect solution — especially when social media has become such a strong link for Japan’s connection to international tourists.
“I think (content creators) can play a crucial role in showcasing Japan's diversity and promoting sustainable tourism practices, but collaboration with larger organizations and industry professionals could help amplify these efforts,” Hutchison says.
While Japan can be slow on the uptake when it comes to embracing new trends, regional tourism organizations have been making strides in using established creators’ platforms to showcase out-of-the-way destinations and thereby break through to tourists with tunnel vision for Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. Earlier this year, Oita Prefecture partnered with creator Ariel Lee to show off the hidden treasures of the southern region.
Rural towns “want to welcome more tourists,” says Paggioro, who recently posted about a trip to the preserved Edo Period (1603-1868) merchant district of Imaicho in Kashihara, Nara Prefecture, a city not far from the ancient imperial capital of Asuka.
"Imaicho was a personal trip, but I ended up taking lots of videos and I shared it on my profile,” she says. “The videos I have made about it did very well in my opinion, considering it's a destination not (many) Japanese people know about and it's a bit far from the main (tourist sites)."
All roads lead back to the almighty algorithm, though: The more distant the region from Tokyo’s main tourism poles, the less traction content creators can usually hope to gain with online audiences. For part-time creators like Takahashi (whose main source of income is creative work and tour guiding), Hutchison (acting, dancing and modeling), Kato (digital communications) and Paggioro (English teacher), they may have the wiggle room to pay their own way to occasionally cover hidden gems. Full-time creators, for whom healthy view counts mean a steady paycheck, there can be less willingness to stray from what audiences are already eating up.
Trends come and go, though, and tourists are always searching for places to visit and things to do on their next trip. And if more government support of content creators is what creates that appetite, it’s hard not to see it as a win-win for all involved — crowded metropolises, overlooked countrysides and foreign creators alike.
“I don't want to use filters or put out content just for the sake of views and followers,” Paggioro says. “I want to show people what the real Japan is.”
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.