COURTESY CAN GET TO THE TOP OF A LIMITS.
According to go company JTB, the state has been promoting the country to foreign customers for decades with phenomenal success. This year’s visitors are expected to surpass the 2019 pre-COVID history. Everywhere you look, the negative effects are increasing for regular residents, from exceedingly expensive hotels to suitcase-clogged streets that are nearly unwalkable.
One irreverent restaurant owner expressed growing frustration with dealing with tourists looking for English selections and services in their native tongue next month. The time and hassle involved in dealing with them did n’t make sense for travellers who do n’t spend much anyway, the owner explained.
The problems split opinion, with some sympathising, while others defended the country’s touted omotenashi hospitality- a word so associated with the Chinese encouraged that it just made it into the Oxford English Dictionary ( “good hospitality, characterised by kindness, close attention to detail, and the excitement of a bride’s needs”, in case you were wondering ).
But just as in Fujikawaguchiko, that courtesy may be reaching its limits. Authorities and small business owners are resolute to preserve their way of life.
Tourists have been banned from the backstreets of Gion, where overtourism is most prevalent, while the city has hurriedly added special buses for travelers amid complaints that elderly people ca n’t use public transportation.
In Hiroshima, one restaurant serving the local soul food of okonomiyaki ( coincidentally, another word just added to the dictionary ) has declared visitors verboten on Friday evenings, limiting entrance to prefectural residents and regulars.