Japan, amid an unprecedented travel boom, is starting to charge tourists more to visit

Natalie Stechyson · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 20, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

There's a meme circulating that the mean millennial midlife situation unfolds similar this: 

1. Take up running.
2. Make location plants your full personality.
3. Buy an aerial fryer.
4. Start readying a travel to Japan.

First of all, ouch. But 2nd of all, the accuracy.

The allure of Japan has called to travellers (young and old, for the record) for years, but especially since the extremity of the COVID-19 pandemic. The unsocial premix of taste traditions and cutting-edge modernity, its accent connected wellness and aesthetic of comfort, and its earthy landscapes and fashionable attractions are conscionable portion of what makes Japan truthful appealing to many.

Last year, Japan was named the champion state to sojourn successful the satellite by the Conde Nast Readers' Choice Awards.

And now, bolstered by a anemic yen, it's besides much affordable, starring to an unprecedented question roar that saw the country cross the 10-million visitant people astatine its fastest-ever gait this year. For many, it's a invited boost, aft tourism to Japan was each but halted for much than 2 years during the pandemic, arsenic the state enactment up immoderate of the world's strictest borderline controls.

But present arsenic Japan grapples with the surge, it has a caller problem: overtourism, with crowds affecting everything from immoderate of its astir ineffable traditions to increasing housing and edifice prices. 

"I'm blessed determination are truthful galore visitors to Japan, but I'm agonizing each day," Yoshiki Kojima, who owns an IT company, told the Japan Times successful January astir his struggles to find affordable edifice rooms for his employees erstwhile they travel to Tokyo.

"I've already fixed up," Natsuki Sato, a mother who realized she could not spend to bargain a location due to the fact that she lives adjacent a popular skis edifice wherever tourism has driven up spot prices, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation connected April 12.

And now, to assistance cope, immoderate of Japan's most fashionable tourism destinations are reportedly rolling retired a two-tier pricing system on everything from restaurants to theme parks.

WATCH | There's a planetary matcha boom: 

Canadian visits connected the rise

Arrivals of overseas visitors for concern and leisure reached 3.5 cardinal past month, bringing the full done the archetypal 4th to 10.54 million, information from the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) showed.

Last year, Japan reached 10 cardinal visitors successful April.

For the full of 2025, tourer arrivals are connected gait to eclipse past year's all-time level of 36.87 million. The nation's famed cherry blossom play helped boost request successful March, which saw grounds arrivals for immoderate azygous period among travellers from the United States and Canada, the JNTO said.

And Canada was among the apical 20 countries whose residents person visited Japan recently, with 44,500 visits from Canadians recorded successful February alone, up 31 per cent from last February. Over 550,000 Canadian tourists visited past year, up 37 per cent from the twelvemonth before.

Right now, $1 Cdn gets you astir 103 yen — oregon successful different words, a bowl of ramen tin outgo astir $5, and a modular edifice country astir $200 a night.

The weakness of the yen against the Canadian dollar is simply a large gully close now, says Aaron Petrowitsch, 32, a Calgarian who travelled to Tokyo and Kyoto for his honeymoon successful February. 

"A batch of radical don't privation to question to the States close now, and just enough," Petrowitsch told CBC News. "But looking astatine different places wherever your wealth goes a agelong way, Japan is decidedly 1 of those places."

He and his wife Sarah had primitively planned a travel to Japan successful 2020, which they had to cancel owed to COVID-19 question restrictions. When they rebooked for their honeymoon, Petrowitsch says helium was pleasantly amazed that the travel would beryllium much affordable than it would person been 5 years ago.

"It's getting much and much popular, that's for sure," Petrowitsch said, adding that astir 2 weeks aft helium got backmost to Calgary, a workfellow of his travelled to Japan with his girlfriend, and helium knows astatine slightest 1 different workfellow readying a trip.

Overtourism

But arsenic more tourists flock to Japan, galore of them inspired by societal media, what's called overtourism has go a hot topic. 

"The contented is not truthful overmuch with excessively galore radical going to Japan, but with excessively galore radical going to the aforesaid places portion they're there," James Mundy of Inside Japan explained connected the Responsible Travel website.

"What tourists and section communities privation to bash is not sometimes harmonized," Kenji Hamamoto of the Japan Tourism Agency told Travel Voice, a Japanese question quality site, in January.

Some regions and attractions person taken extra measures. The historical geisha territory of Gion in Kyoto, for instance, has banned tourists from immoderate of its alleyways and backstage streets in an effort to power those who person reportedly tried to unit geisha and maiko to airs for photos or touched their kimonos.

Tourists flocking Kamakura for a photograph op person go truthful problematic that the municipality had to adhd information guards to support radical distant from its famed railway crossing.

And in Fujikawaguchiko, truthful galore radical person blocked roads oregon trespassed to get an Instagram-famous photograph of the Lawson Convenience Shop by Mount Fuji that authorities had to enactment up a obstruction to artifact the view. (They eventually, quietly, took it backmost down, CNN reports.)

Meanwhile, a 400-year-old temple successful Kyoto has been plagued by litter and unauthorized photograph shoots. And Mount Fuji has go truthful overcrowded and littered by tourists that immoderate person called it "trash mountain."  

Two-tier pricing?

To negociate overtourism, immoderate tourer hotspots are expanding their prices. Starting successful July, anyone who climbs Mount Fuji volition person to wage 4,000 yen, oregon astir $39 Cdn, for a licence — treble the price of past year's alleged "tourist tax."

Starting adjacent year, Himeji Castle in occidental Japan will complaint tourists much than treble its mean rate. A new nature-themed parkland called Junglia Okinawa is charging 8,000 yen for a one-day walk for tourists, versus 6,300 yen for citizens.

It's been reported that immoderate restaurants are charging a tourer tax, specified arsenic an all-you-can-eat seafood edifice successful Tokyo that offers a discount for residents of Japan.

And successful 2023, officials rolled retired a 100-yen tourer taxation to visitors astatine Miyajima, home to the UNESCO World Heritage Itsukushima Shrine, to anyone entering "by boat."

Petrowitsch, from Calgary, says helium didn't truly announcement a two-tier strategy connected his visit, and erstwhile determination was a little terms for Japanese locals, it was "minimal." He besides says it apt won't deter him from visiting again, unless the terms quality becomes drastic.

"We had specified a large time."