Over tourism isn’t necessarily people being dickheads. Most people are probably just like you: respectful and appreciative of our culture. It’s just that there are way too many of you guys. And that’s really not your fault. The Japanese government and the corporations did not try at all to promote and grow the industry in a sustainable way and us normies were too complacent until shit got too annoying.

I’m Okinawan and I don’t even go to my old favourite spots anymore because it’s too packed everywhere and most of the places I liked are gone anyway — they got replaced by lame tourist traps.

There’s no easy answer to the situation but you know what makes a difference (for me, at least)? It’s when tourists try to engage with us locals instead of treating us and our culture as the background to their content to share on Instagram.

If you don’t do problematic things you won’t be seen as the problem. The vast majority of tourists aren’t doing anything bad either.

The issue is that there are so, so many tourists coming to Japan that even if only 0.1% of them are bad, that’s still tens of thousands of people, which ends up leaving a dent in absolute numbers regardless.

It’s a hard problem to manage because there will always be a small amount of people misbehaving no matter where in the world you go.

I’ve been several times in the last few years and haven’t had any issues, they’re very welcoming and friendly.

(but not in Kyoto…)

If it’s anything like what has happened to Iceland you are better off waiting 10 years.

This makes no sense lol