With the yen at its weakest in decades, Kyoto's hard-hit tourism operators should be bracing for a surge as Japan reopens its doors, but shoddy behaviour and overcrowding is still firmly in the city's memory.
Poring over the ledger at her more than 230-year-old liquor shop in Kyoto, Yasuko Fujii has mixed feelings about the return of foreign tourists who would crowd the streets of Japan's ancient capital before the pandemic — and buy lots of whisky and wine.
Japan's opening up to mass tourism over the last decade brought an economic boost — a record 32 million tourists visited in 2019 and spent some $38 billion — but that also led to complaints of shoddy behaviour at sites such as Kyoto's temples. With the yen at its weakest in more than two decades and a revival in global travel, Kyoto's hard-hit hotels and traditional sweet shops should have been bracing for a tourism surge.
The family-run shop was flooded with visitors before the pandemic. Knowing the Kimuras would not accept tips, visitors often left tokens of gratitude: a Canadian flag pin, paper cutting from China, Russian perfume and Hawaiian nuts."The issue is not about foreign tourists but rather our capacity to accommodate customers," she said.
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