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Nearly a third of them traveled to Kyoto, where the tourism industry employed one of every five workers. Starting from a base of around 10 million in 2013, the number of foreign visitors had more than tripled by the pandemic’s start, according to government data. But in the years leading up to the pandemic, it had become dependent on the flood of tourists that bumped, clattered and pushed through its streets. Kyoto is home to several globally known companies such as Nintendo and Kyocera, and has produced more Nobel Prize winners in the sciences than any other city in Japan. “Kyoto isn’t a tourist city, it’s a city that values tourism,” Daisaku Kadokawa, the city’s mayor, said during a recent interview at its city hall, where he wore the formal kimono that has become a trademark during his almost 15 years in office.

In the absence of a clear solution, Kyoto’s government is betting on a change of perspective: After years of promoting “omotenashi” - a Japanese word for meticulous hospitality - it’s trying to take more time for self-care.

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(Even after normal travel resumes, however, Chinese visitors, who accounted for more than 30% of inbound traffic in 2019, are unlikely to return in large numbers until Beijing relaxes its strict COVID Zero policy.)Īs tourism slowly returns, Kyoto, like other famous tourist destinations worldwide, is grappling with how to accommodate the crowds without sacrificing quality of life for those who call the ancient capital home. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said last week that the country would further ease border controls in October, eliminating a cap on daily entries and allowing tourists to travel independently. The country eased restrictions on trips for business and study in the spring, but as of September, it was still limiting tourism to travelers on package tours who were willing to negotiate a labyrinth of red tape. As other countries began welcoming tourists back in numbers close to their prepandemic highs, Japan let only a trickle of travelers in. Since the start of 2021, fewer than 800,000 foreign visitors have set foot in the country. Other than China, Japan had maintained the strictest border controls of any major economy. “We realized that we can’t choose our customers,” he said. The tourists - along with their money - evaporated, and sellers had a change of heart, said Hatsuda, who sells kamaboko, a fish cake often formed into delicate pink and white loaves. Nishiki has long been a working market, and the parade of visitors - rifling through the meticulously arranged merchandise, haggling with frazzled shopkeepers and blocking storefronts with their luggage - interfered with the flow of daily business, driving away locals who had long done their shopping on the street.īut then the pandemic hit. “We weren’t used to foreign tourists,” said Nobuyuki Hatsuda, who leads a business alliance promoting the shopping street in the city center, where vendors sell a dizzying array of traditional Japanese foods, carefully displayed and attractively packaged.

In the months before March 2020, the food sellers in Kyoto’s Nishiki market often wished for an end to the seemingly endless stream of photo-hungry visitors from abroad who always seemed to be underfoot.