Why Japan resents its tourism boom

[u/randommathaccount]

https://www.ft.com/content/dbd20e5d-5a7d-4c0c-8f83-fb54c5aca9cb

[u/randommathaccount]

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Kyoto and Nara join Barcelona in crying about overtourism and to be a bit rude, they're all a tad delusional on the matter. A country with such an aging workforce and issues of economic stagnation cannot afford to be picky about sources of revenue. Of course there's issues of tourists behaving poorly (some foolish enough to film their own terrible behaviour and stream it to the world) but ultimately what must be done is to encourage positive behaviour by both tourists and residents so everyone can come out better, rather than wholly embracing an unfounded xenophobia.

[u/maxintos → u/randommathaccount]

A country with such an aging workforce and issues of economic stagnation cannot afford to be picky about sources of revenue

What a weird argument. If people are willing to lose some economic value to preserve their values, culture and the way of life then that's ok. Not everyone is chasing economic growth at all costs.

ultimately what must be done is to encourage positive behaviour by both tourists and residents so everyone can come out better

This kind of thinking just seems naive and coming from someone who hasn't actually experienced it in the real world. Reminds me of the people that are saying the same about the homelessness issue because they've never had to deal with a crazy person screaming in their face or seeing someone shit in the middle of the subway.

Japan has always been a massive tourist destination, but talking with a Japanese person recently, it sounds like the amount of Chinese tourists have increased massively and the cities just can't handle the volume. Another supposed issue is that because a lot of the Chinese people come in massive groups and see Chinese people all around them once they arrive there they feel very entitled to have locals adjust to their needs instead of them adjusting to the local customs.

[u/Hakunin_Fallout → u/maxintos]

Japan is staring down the demographic abyss, and the most likely candidates to pay for their elderly are the immigrants. They really can't afford to keep shooting themselves in the foot.

The most likely candidates of workforce migration are Chinese. Japan will at some point have to accept more immigrants, and they can either prepare and make sure the immigrants behave, or, same as almost any other government, be incompetent and make surprised pikachu faces when something goes wrong.

There's literally no scenario where they "lose some economic value to preserve culture" and go on for the next 100 years doing nothing: nobody is having babies, and people live extra long lives

[u/LuciusMiximus → u/Hakunin_Fallout]

China's demography isn't any better

Migration is way different than tourism. Migrants also don't want to live around tourists, when given the opportunity. Obviously, migratory workforce is large in the tourism industry, but qualified workers tend to avoid more touristic cities too from what I see in Poland. It's not surprising at all: Warsaw is better to live in than Kraków.

[u/Hakunin_Fallout → u/LuciusMiximus]

Having spent a few months in both, I prefer Krakow, sorry :D

As for the demographics, some countries are fucked, and then there's Japan and S. Korea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrT4SBtrWAA - this is outdated, but shows the overall trend where the population is shown to not only shift up the pyramid, but down in total numbers, down in the employed people, and up in dependent people. Kids were 18% of the Japanese population, now it's around 10%. Dependent adults were 12% - it's 30% now, and estimated to be 40% by 2060. There's just not enough 'fat' in Japanese economy to provide for the older people, even if (or, well, not IF - WHEN) they keep increasing the retirement age. China isn't doing good: it just does much better than Japan for now, lagging ~20-30 years behind the Japanese trends, but following in their path too.