Festival ban didn’t stop crowds

Fujiyoshida canceled its 2026 cherry blossom festival to cut overtourism, but visitors still packed the Mt. Fuji viewpoint during peak bloom. (cbc.ca) The city announced on Feb. 3 that it would not hold the spring festival at Arakurayama Sengen Park, where the Chureito pagoda, cherry blossoms and Mount Fuji line up in one of Japan’s most shared photos. City officials said overtourism had “exceeded the limits of what can be accommodated.” (asahi.com) Even without official events, CBC reported that thousands of people were still arriving each day in April, and the city was directing about 13,000 people a day through the area during peak season. The park stayed open, and the blossoms still bloomed on schedule. (cbc.ca) The festival had grown into a major draw since it began in 2016, with more than 200,000 visitors coming during the festival period in recent years. Fujiyoshida has a population of roughly 44,000 to 47,000 people, leaving a small city to absorb a spring rush several times its size. (asahi.com) (forbes.com) Residents had complained that crowds clogged narrow roads, left trash behind and spilled into residential areas. Asahi reported that some tourists tried to enter nearby homes to use toilets, and one resident told CBC that a visitor defecated on a lawn. (asahi.com) (cbc.ca) The city did not simply shut the site. It kept traffic control staff in place, added temporary toilets and warned visitors not to enter residential neighborhoods or take photos without permission from April 1 to 17. (asahi.com) Officials say the tourism surge traces back to a single image that spread online about a decade ago: cherry blossoms around the pagoda with Mount Fuji behind it. CBC reported that city tourism chief Masatoshi Hada said the photo now drives most of Fujiyoshida’s tourism. (cbc.ca) That helps explain why canceling a festival did not cancel the crowds. The attraction was never only the event calendar; it was the view itself, amplified by social media and a weak yen that has helped pull record numbers of foreign visitors to Japan this spring. (cbc.ca) Mayor Shigeru Horiuchi said the city wants to build a system in which “residents’ daily lives and tourism can coexist.” In Fujiyoshida this April, the festival disappeared, but the line for the photo did not. (asahi.com)