Cherry‑blossom festival canceled

Fujiyoshida has canceled its 2026 cherry blossom festival at Arakurayama Sengen Park after city officials said tourist crowds had outgrown what the neighborhood could handle. (fujiyoshida.net) The city announced the decision on February 3 and said the annual New Kurayama Sengen Park Sakura Festival would not be held this year. Officials kept crowd-control measures in place from April 1 to 17, with traffic restrictions through April 19. (fujiyoshida.net) Arakurayama Sengen Park is the Mount Fuji viewpoint with the five-story pagoda that has spread widely on social media. The festival began in 2016, and The Asahi Shimbun reported that more than 200,000 visitors now come during the festival period, with more than 10,000 people a day during the roughly two-week peak. (asahi.com) City officials said overtourism had “exceeded the limits of what can be accommodated” and was affecting residents’ daily lives in the surrounding residential area. The official tourism site told visitors not to enter homes, not to take photos without permission, and to expect one- to three-hour waits for the observation deck. (asahi.com) (fujiyoshida.net) Masatoshi Hada, a manager in Fujiyoshida’s economics and environment department, told The Associated Press the city decided not to promote a festival that would invite more visitors. The Associated Press reported complaints about traffic jams, litter, tourists knocking on private doors to use toilets, and people relieving themselves in front yards. (channelnewsasia.com) Mayor Shigeru Horiuchi said in a city statement that residents’ “quiet lives” were being threatened behind the famous scenery. He said the city would work on systems that let tourism and daily life coexist. (asahi.com) The cancellation does not mean the crowds disappeared. The city still deployed security staff, traffic control, temporary parking and temporary toilets because it expected large numbers of visitors during the bloom anyway. (fujiyoshida.net) (asahi.com) The dispute in Fujiyoshida lands in a broader tourism surge across Japan. The Associated Press reported that foreign visitors in the area have exceeded 10,000 a day in recent years, and local officials said that level had “threatened residents’ daily lives.” (channelnewsasia.com) For travelers, the immediate change is simple: the blossoms are still there, but the city is no longer packaging the season as a festival. For Fujiyoshida, April now looks less like a celebration than a crowd-management operation. (fujiyoshida.net) (channelnewsasia.com)