As more foreign visitors visit Kyoto’s top sights, Japanese travelers increasingly staying away

Study finds locals avoiding famous temples and other spots booming with overseas tourists, heading elsewhere instead.

Japan is in the middle of an unprecedentedly huge inbound international travel boom, with the country’s major tourism attractions seeing significantly more tourists than they did prior to the pandemic. Nowhere is this more noticeable than in Kyoto, but it turns out there hasn’t been an across-the-demographic-board increase in the number of visitors to the city’s temples, shrines, and gardens, as several of the city’s top sightseeing attractions have seen a sharp drop in their number of Japanese visitors.

The Kyoto municipal government conducts an annual study to track tourism trends in the city, and as expected there was a huge increase in foreign travelers between 2023 and 2024. Looking at the number of foreign visitors at Kinkakuji/the Golden Pavilion, Fushimi Inari Shrine, the scenic Togetsukyo Bridge in the Arashiyama district, Nishiki Market, the Kiyomizu Gojo neighborhood, and Kitano Tenmangu Shrine, all had increases of at least 24 percent.

● Change in number of foreign visitors between 2023 and 2024
Fushimi Inari: 46 percent increase
Nishiki Market: 42 percent increase
Kitano Tenmangu: 42 percent increase
Kiyomizu Gojo: 34 percent increase
Kinkakuji: 29 percent increase
Togetsukyo Bridge: 24 percent increase

Meanwhile, the number of Japanese visitors to all six of those places dropped over the same period.

● Change in number of Japanese visitors between 2023 and 2024
Fushimi Inari: 23 percent decrease
Nishiki Market: 16 percent decrease
Kitano Tenmangu: 42 percent decrease
Kiyomizu Gojo: 34 percent decrease
Kinkakuji: 29 percent decrease
Togetsukyo Bridge: 11 percent decrease

Not only are the visitor numbers moving in opposite directions, the larger increases in foreign tourist numbers are more or less aligning with larger decreases in Japanese visitor numbers (though Nishiki Market is an exception), suggesting that the larger tourist crowds are making those destinations less appealing to domestic travelers.

▼ The approach to Togetsukyo Bridge

This doesn’t mean that Japanese tourists are avoiding Kyoto entirely, however. The same Kyoto government study also saw increases in the number of Japanese visitors to parts of the city farther on its outskirts with less world-famous attractions, and also less convenient access by public transportation. However, while shifting their itineraries to these lower-profile districts allows for a less congested travel experience, it also means forgoing visiting the sites of greatest Japanese historical and cultural significance.

It remains to be seen how long the broad international tourism community’s intense interest in Japan will be sustained, as pent-up demand from travel plans delayed during the pandemic is still a factor, and the weakness of the yen is also a deciding factor in many people’s decision to visit the country for the first time. At the same time, many people in Japan are being forced to tighten their belts as consumer prices rise and wages stagnate, while hotels, seeking to capitalize on the high demand for rooms from inbound tourists flush with spending power, have been rapidly raising their rates in prime destinations. Combined, those factors are convincing many foreign travelers that right now is a great time to go to Kyoto and see its top sights, while simultaneously making many Japanese people feel like it’s definitely not the time to, so whether this visitor gap will be permanent or not, it’s probably going to get wider before it narrows.

Source: YTV News via Yahoo! Japan News via Jin
Top image: Pakutaso
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