Leading the way under the rumbling train tracks, Rory Dent salutes Daitoryo (which means “president” in English), a storied izakaya pub at an intersection of Ueno’s smoke-filled alleys packed with bars and eateries serving up grilled chicken and pork skewers, Japanese tripe stew and a variety of other cheap, small dishes — not to mention plenty of booze.
“This place (Daitoryo) got its license in 1950,” the British tour guide explains as we stroll around this bustling neighborhood in the capital’s Taito Ward. The shopping and entertainment district is crowded with locals and tourists alike, but it’s nowhere near the levels of congestion seen at such tourist magnets as Harajuku’s Takeshita Street or Asakusa’s Sensoji temple.
“This area is the birthplace of postwar Tokyo — it’s unpretentious to the max,” he says. “It's not hard at all to find somewhere interesting in Tokyo that’s not full of people.”
Dent is alluding to Japan’s current overtourism challenge.
With the lifting of pandemic-era travel restrictions and a weak yen, record numbers of overseas tourists are entering the country. Monthly visitors exceeded 3 million for the first time in March and then again in April and May. According to the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO), in May 738,800 came from South Korea, 545,400 from China and 466,000 from Taiwan, followed by 247,000 from the United States and 217,500 from Hong Kong.
“The Japan bug is real,” says Dent, who gave 291 tours of Tokyo in total last year but has already led around 140 this year.
While the influx of visitors is a boon for the economy (tourism is now Japan’s second-most profitable export behind cars, according to the Nikkei), it appears to be irritating some locals as restaurants, accommodations, popular attractions and transportation networks are grappling with a surge in demand.
In April, Kyoto issued a ban on visitors from entering the narrow, private streets in the geisha neighborhood of Gion after complaints were made that unruly, smartphone-wielding tourists were ignoring requests to keep their distance from the kimono-clad entertainers.
Last month, a large mesh barrier was erected in front of a Lawson convenience store in Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, to deter a ballooning number of littering and trespassing tourists from taking photographs of a towering Mount Fuji in the shop’s background.
In short, overtourism is proving to be overwhelming.
“Yeah, there are some independent travelers just being jerks and being rude and breaking rules, and for every one person like that there are a thousand well-behaved tourists,” Dent says. “But that doesn’t erase the fact that that person exists. It’s the guide's job to pick up the slack and make sure they’re explaining the rules and keeping their clients under control and well-behaved rather than debasing the industry.”
With the government of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida aiming to welcome 60 million inbound tourists by 2030 — nearly double the previous record of 31.9 million in 2019 when spending by international visitors totaled ¥4.8 trillion (around $44 billion at the time) — how to manage the growing number of foreign travelers while taming social tensions is shaping up to be a key question for an industry considered one of the pillars of the nation’s economy.
“We must balance welcoming tourists with ensuring the quality of life of our residents,” Ichiro Takahashi, the head of the Japan Tourism Agency, said during a news conference on May 15.
“We will continue to firmly support ambitious local initiatives on that end.”
The tour guide’s life
Dent, a voluble 33-year-old originally from West London, offers private tours of Tokyo to mostly British and American travelers and occasionally to those from other European nations.
After working at U.K.-based tour operator Audley Travel for around seven years, he took the leap and struck out on his own in Japan, where his wife is from, and settled in Tokyo with his family early last year to begin offering guided tours. Now he’s a freelancer working primarily with several tour operators including his former employer.
Previously, an aspiring interpreter-guide had to pass a national examination administered by the JNTO and register with a local government to conduct foreign-language tours in Japan. The law was amended in 2018, however, and now interpreter-guides can provide tours for monetary compensation regardless of qualifications.
How such guides get paid varies widely. Some are hired directly by tour companies as salaried members of staff, freelancers can work with suppliers abroad. Guides may also be subcontracted by companies on the ground. Sometimes it's a direct booking and payment by the client, while others use booking platforms to help connect them with clients. There are volunteer guides, too.
“With licensing requirements being low and demand being high, in theory the potential competition is quite high — some guides also do it as more of a hobby than a full time job, meaning they're happy to guide for a very low price, which can be quite competitive,” Dent says.
On this hot and humid day in the middle of June, Dent is expounding on Ueno’s black-market roots and how the area, centered around the station of the same name, served as a gateway for laborers coming from the northern Tohoku region looking for work as the capital recovered from the ashes of war.
A self-proclaimed history nerd, Dent can describe the significance of, say, a nondescript building or an unassuming landmark at length. Take UENO3153, for example. Dent points out that the glassy restaurant complex’s name pays homage to famed 19th-century samurai Saigo Takamori, whose statue stands in Ueno Park.
How so? Well, “3153” in Japanese can be pronounced sa-i-go-san, or Saigo-san. “I’m always looking out for numerical puns,” he says.
As we wander into Ueno Park and enter the premises of the Kiyomizu Kannon-do, a temple founded in 1631, we encounter two women taking photographs on the structure’s wooden balcony. Grace O’Mara and Bronagh Ronaghan are both 24 and work for the same U.K.-based management consultancy.
They arrived in Tokyo a day earlier and plan to spend two weeks in Japan, visiting Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima and finally, Miyako Island in Okinawa Prefecture. They sorted their itinerary themselves using various websites, and are traveling without a guide.
“It’s our first time in Japan — we must have booked in September last year,” O’Mara says. “Everyone is so polite and helpful. You can’t even get that much support in the U.K. for tourists, so it’s been easy so far.”
The colleagues seem pleasantly surprised at how cheap everything is. “Like, we went for dinner last night and it cost us ¥5,000 (around $31), so about £12 each. In the U.K. you won’t even get a meal for that,” says O’Mara.
Would they pay a tourist tax if there was one? “We definitely would,” they both reply.
Two tiers or not to tier
Besides a ¥1,000 departure tax and the lodging tax already in place for both domestic and international tourists in cities like Tokyo, Kyoto and Kanazawa, there is no taxation program operated by local governments in Japan that specifically targets foreign travelers.
Earlier this year, however, Osaka Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura said Osaka will consider charging overseas tourists staying in the prefecture an “entry fee” to combat overtourism. If introduced, it would be the first levy of its kind nationwide.
At Mount Fuji, climbers ascending the peak from the most popular trail in Yamanashi Prefecture will be charged ¥2,000 from July to ease congestion, with entries capped at 4,000 people a day.
Elsewhere, Hideyasu Kiyomoto, the mayor of Himeji in Hyogo Prefecture, told reporters earlier this month that he is considering charging non-locals and foreign travelers a higher entrance fee to Himeji Castle — which is currently ¥1,000 for anyone 18 and over — to secure funds for the preservation of the UNESCO heritage site.
“In discussing the overtourism of the main wooden building, we agreed that about $30 is the world standard,” Kiyomoto said. “I think there is a difference between citizens who use the place for recreation and those who come once a year, or maybe once every 10 years, for the purpose of visiting a world heritage site.”
Yoshihiro Sataki, a professor at Josai International University and an expert on tourism, cautions against such moves as they could be viewed as discriminatory. There are already restaurants that have begun implementing a two-tier pricing system for visitors and locals.
“If foreign tourists are charged extra every time they visit a site, the total cost of their travel will be higher no matter how cheap Japan is,” he says. “People will think that we charge more for foreigners even though we are a developed country.”
Instead, Sataki suggests introducing a pay-on-arrival fee for inbound travelers to curb overtourism. “Something like that probably won’t receive much backlash,” he says. “If the government collects the money and distributes it, I think it’s understandable compared to, say, charging four times the regular fee to foreign travelers.”
Meanwhile, Tomohisa Ishikawa, chief economist at the Japan Research Institute, recommends targeting rich travelers by offering high-value added services.
The JNTO, in fact, aims to increase the number of "luxury tourists" — those who spend more than ¥1 million ($6,300) per person during their stay — and in February invited foreign travel companies that cater to wealthy tourists to meet with domestic luxury hotels and destination management companies to showcase what Japan's towns and villages can offer.
“Too many people are coming for the cheap services,” Ishikawa says, “and that’s part of what’s leading to overtourism.”
Off the beaten track?
What began as a one-woman operation in 2016 for Anne Kyle has expanded to a sizable team of around 110, including 70 to 80 tour guides.
But as the founder and CEO of Arigato Travel, a firm specializing in gastronomy-themed tours and customized travel curation focusing on cultural experiences in Japan, Kyle says she is feeling both the opportunities and strains posed by the current travel boom.
“When we communicate with our guests before coming to Japan, they already have three places they want to go: Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka,” she says. “And that’s because travel books from 30 years ago say that and all the things you see on social media share that.”
Kyle, a long-time Japan resident who hails from the Philippines, says that in such instances her staff gently touts the nation’s less-explored regions. “We tell the guests, ‘Sure, these are wonderful places, but did you know that just 15 minutes from Kyoto Station there is a wonderful region called Shiga?’” she says, referring to the prefecture east of Kyoto known for the enormous freshwater Lake Biwa.
“We respect what the guests want to do but also think of how to promote lesser known destinations,” she says. “And people in the industry need to think more of that and move tourists away from the "Golden Route" (a popular course for first time visitors to Japan), or even within the Golden Route, find places that are hidden that are much more special and don't feel as crowded or touristy.”
It’s not just about diverting tourists off the beaten path, however. Japan is experiencing a chronic labor shortage in the hospitality sector thanks to a shrinking and aging population, pandemic-era layoffs and job transfers — factors that all limit both the quality and quantity of services that can be offered.
According to a report released last month by Teikoku Data Bank, 71.1% of hotel and ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) operators said they lack full-time employees, while 63.8% said they lack non-permanent workers.
So it’s not only locals in tourist magnets that are weary. “It seems like we’re not handling tourism very well at this point,” Kyle says. “Tour operators, tour guides, hotel staff, transportation companies and restaurants — the industry itself is too overwhelmed.”
Nevertheless, with business booming, Dent, the British tour guide, is looking to expand his one-man outfit, Tobira Travel, and is on the lookout for talent. In the meantime, he’s busy conducting almost daily tours.
On a recent Tuesday morning, he’s at a boutique hotel in Tokyo’s business district of Shiodome to meet his client, a fellow Brit named Peter Wood, who arrived the day before for a two-week vacation during which he’ll visit Kyoto, Hiroshima and Matsumoto.
The hotel lobby is lively with similar groups of travelers meeting up with their own respective guides to discuss their day’s itinerary.
“I was looking for somewhere that was just a bit out there and different culturally and societally,” says Wood, a 57-year-old retired police officer who’s visiting Japan for the first time. “Somewhere that would take me out of my comfort zone, plus somewhere with a good cultural history.”
I ask Dent where he plans to take Wood today. “We’ll see. That’s the beauty of jazz guiding,” he says, referring to a term he coined to describe his style of guiding where he stitches destinations as he goes depending on the interests of his clients.
And there are plenty of places to explore: On his smartphone map are myriad markers he’s planted of curious locations in the city.
“I don't know where we’ll end up,” he says with a grin. That seems to be the sentiment the entire industry is currently trying to figure out.
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.