Japan hopes for more visitors despite overtourism

The municipality known for Himeji Castle is reportedly considering setting the entrance fee for the World Heritage site four times higher for foreign tourists than for locals – Copyright Afp/AFP Richard A. Brooks

Japan’s tourism chief said on Thursday that the ambitious goal of attracting 60 million foreign tourists annually – more than double the current number – was well within reach despite growing concerns about overtourism.

Japan attracted over 25 million tourists from countries such as South Korea, Singapore and the United States last year, thanks in part to the lifting of pandemic-era border restrictions.

Ichiro Takahashi, head of the Japan Tourism Agency, acknowledged that the previously announced target of 60 million remained “tough” but stressed that it was within the realm of possibility.

“With the right efforts, we can certainly reach that number,” Takahashi said at a briefing in Tokyo.

“There are still many little-known places in Japan that are unexplored by tourists from abroad – I believe Japan has infinite tourism resources,” said Takahashi.

More than three million foreign tourists visited Japan in May for the third month in a row, according to government statistics released on Wednesday.

But the influx of tourists to Japan in recent months has reignited concerns about overtourism, with locals complaining about what they see as inappropriate behavior and breaches of etiquette.

The city of Himeji in western Japan was one of the local governments that recently expressed its displeasure.

The municipality known for Himeji Castle is considering setting the entrance fee to the World Heritage site four times higher for foreign tourists than for locals, local media reported.

“A wooden structure wears out and becomes more brittle when so many people climb up and down,” Mayor Hideyasu Kiyomoto told Japanese media, stressing the need to “curb overtourism.”

Local citizens who use the castle as a meeting place for their community should not be charged the same amount as “people who only come here once every ten years for sightseeing,” he said.

Another hotspot for overtourism is Mount Fuji, where a new crowd-control gate was erected along the popular hiking trail on Monday.

The measure followed a rare move by an angry Japanese city last month that deliberately blocked the view of the volcano with a large black barrier to deter photo-hungry tourists.