Japan travel: quiet Tokyo vs overtourism
- Fujiyoshida and nearby Fujikawaguchiko have become symbols of Japan’s overtourism fight, as viral Mount Fuji photo spots brought crowds, litter and traffic danger. - Fujiyoshida says peak-season foot traffic now reaches about 13,000 people a day, while Arakurayama Sengen Park drew roughly 1.51 million visitors in 2024. - Tokyo’s official tourism guides keep steering visitors toward neighborhood-scale museums, food and culture instead of single viral viewpoints. (gotokyo.org)
Near Mount Fuji, two neighboring towns now show the split in Japan travel: Tokyo can still be planned quietly, while Fujiyoshida and Fujikawaguchiko are managing crowd spillovers. (cbc.ca) (gotokyo.org) In Fujikawaguchiko, officials installed a black mesh barrier in May 2024 to block the viral Lawson convenience-store view of Mount Fuji after littering, jaywalking and illegal parking complaints. The barrier measured about 20 meters long and 2.5 meters high. (asahi.com) (cbsnews.com) Asahi reported the town began receiving at least three resident complaints a week from March 2024, even after posting guards and multilingual warning signs. Reuters reported the road was narrow enough that residents worried about tourists dashing across traffic for photos. (asahi.com) (stripes.com) Fujiyoshida, a separate city nearby, is dealing with a broader version of the same problem around Arakurayama Sengen Park and Honcho Street. Both sites frame Mount Fuji in the background, and both have been amplified by social media. (cbc.ca) (asahi.com) CBC reported Fujiyoshida cancelled its annual cherry blossom festival in 2026 after officials said “tourism pollution” had reached critical levels. The city’s tourism chief, Masatoshi Hada, said crowds during peak season now reach about 13,000 people a day. (cbc.ca) The city has added guards, trash cans, portable toilets and traffic controls, and it moved to charge for parking near its most photographed sites. Asahi reported Arakurayama Sengen Park visits rose from about 240,000 in 2016 to 1.15 million in 2023 and roughly 1.51 million in 2024. (asahi.com) At Honcho 2-chome, Asahi reported tourists have crouched on the road’s centerline to line up the mountain at the end of the shopping street. The city said attendants and restroom maintenance tied to overtourism were costing about 100 million yen a year. (asahi.com) Tokyo offers a different travel pattern because the city’s official tourism guide is built around districts, museums, gardens, food streets and event calendars rather than one mandatory viral shot. The same site highlights areas such as Aoyama, Omotesando, Shibuya and museum programming including the Edo-Tokyo Museum’s March 31, 2026 reopening. (gotokyo.org) Tokyo’s tourism data catalog also shows the city is measuring visitor flows by sightseeing spot and mobile data as part of its sustainable-tourism planning. That gives travelers a practical alternative: spread out across neighborhoods instead of converging on one curb, one crossing or one convenience store. (data.tourism.metro.tokyo.lg.jp) The contrast is no longer abstract. One side of a Mount Fuji road now has a screen where a postcard view used to be, while Tokyo is still selling the city as a map of many smaller stops. (stripes.com) (gotokyo.org)
