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Julian Ryall

Chinese tourists are being unfairly blamed for Kyoto’s overtourism crisis, according to a new report, even as data shows mainland visitor numbers have fallen sharply amid worsening ties between China and Japan.
The report released earlier this month by the Kyoto City Tourism Association’s destination management organisation said many local residents assumed crowded public transport, congestion at popular sights and rising hotel prices were being driven by mainland Chinese tour groups.
But relatively few Chinese visitors travelled to the ancient Japanese capital in the past couple of years, the report said, largely because Beijing pressured its citizens to holiday elsewhere amid rising geopolitical tensions.
Analysts said near-daily media coverage about China had amplified residents’ assumptions – and grumbles – and likely contributed to the hostility.
In recent weeks, Japanese media reported on Chinese vessels conducting maritime research within Japan’s exclusive economic zone, the arrest in China of two Japanese nationals on suspicion of smuggling restricted rare earth products and the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile from a Chinese submarine into the South Pacific.

Takuya Horie, director of planning and marketing for the Kyoto City Tourism Association, cited several reasons for the misconception that many Chinese tourists were in Kyoto.
“There are people who harbour antipathy towards China and are disseminating information that ignores the data to justify their own views,” he said, adding that some people who had not even visited Kyoto “are forming judgments based on the situation in their own local areas or on selective clips shared on social media”.
Another contributing factor, Horie notes, is that mainland Chinese often travel in large, organised tour groups and locals who encounter such groups might conclude that the city has attracted more visitors than is reality.
Observers say that Japanese people may also have heard Chinese being spoken and assumed the speakers were mainland visitors rather than individuals from Taiwan or ethnic Chinese living in other parts of the world.
According to the organisation’s statistics, Chinese visitors spent 3.5 million nights in Kyoto in 2025, a number that excludes day trippers. That was an 8.8 per cent increase on the previous year.
Growing Tokyo-Beijing tensions, however, meant Chinese overnight stays fell sharply this year, down about 60 per cent from the same period in 2025, Horie said.
That meant the Chinese would account for less than 10 per cent of the total foreign visitors to the city this year, he added.
That trend is replicated across Japan as a whole, according to figures released by the Japan National Tourism Organisation last week. Inbound tourism in the first six months of the year fell 2 per cent to 21.1 million arrivals – the first half-year decline in five years.

Arrivals from China slumped more than 56 per cent to 2.06 million visitors, with spending by Chinese down 48.8 per cent from the same period last year.
The shortfall in visitors has been mostly offset by growth in other markets, largely due to the weak yen, with arrivals from South Korea up 18.6 per cent, Taiwan increasing nearly 21 per cent and those from the US up 7.1 per cent.
The boycott by China, however, does jeopardise the Japanese government’s ambition of welcoming 60 million foreign tourists by 2030, up from 42.68 million in 2025.
Temesgen Assefa, chief consultant at JTB Tourism Research and Consulting, said blaming Kyoto’s overcrowding on “any specific nationality” would be wrong.
“The city has a highly diverse international visitor base, although there are more visibly observable groups because they travel together – such as the Chinese – and that may be interpreted as overtourism,” he told This Week in Asia.
“Unfortunately, we have seen more anti-foreign tourist sentiment in Japan recently due to political friction between Japan and China, and I feel that creates friction between local residents and travellers.”
To tackle the issues causing problems specifically in Kyoto, Assefa suggested that city authorities find ways to improve public transport, such as adding more buses on routes to popular sights and introducing a two-tier cost system for local residents and visitors.
Assefa also said more effort should be made to encourage travellers to explore overlooked parts of Kyoto or plan visits outside the peak cherry blossom or autumn leaves seasons to help reduce friction.


Another analyst pointed to the fundamental problem colouring perceptions between the Chinese and Japanese: their governments’ differences in opinion.
“Relations are at a real low at the moment, and there seem to be few indications of that changing any time soon,” said the Japanese academic, who declined to be named because he serves as a government adviser on relations with China.
Comments by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in November have caused the latest rift. A week after meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping, Takaichi said in the Diet that an attack across the Taiwan Strait could be interpreted as a situation threatening Japan’s survival, which would justify mobilising its armed forces.
Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary. Japan and the US, like most countries, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington opposes any attempt to take the self-governed island by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons.
“The back-and-forth between Japan and China has inevitably been reported in the media and contributed to some of the hostility and stereotyping of Chinese that we hear about now in Kyoto,” the academic said.
“Rowdy foreigners stand out anywhere in Japan because that is not the way things are typically done here. That can also lead to long-term negative impressions, but it’s not correct to blame them on one country when the numbers do not support those conclusions.”


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Chinese tourists blamed for overtourism in Japan’s Kyoto despite huge fall in arrivals

Tourists crowd a street lined with blooming cherry blossom trees in Kyoto, Japan, in March. Photo: Reuters

Tourists walk past shops and restaurants up the hill leading to Kiyomizu-dera temple in Kyoto in January 2025. Japan is targeting 60 million foreign tourists by 2030. Photo: AFP

Tourists walk through Arashiyama Bamboo Forest, one of Kyoto’s most popular tourist destinations in October 2025. Photo: Getty Images

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Hikers make their way up Mount Fuji in 2024 as the summer climbing season was about to begin. Photo: Kyodo

Tourists are seen at Mount Fuji’s fifth station, the highest point accessible by road and the primary starting point for hikers. Photo: AFP

A traveller walks past an image of Mount Fuji in the arrivals terminal at Haneda Airport in Tokyo in May. Photo: AFP

Hikers descend from the summit of Mount Fuji. Local officials have called for a ban on climbing the mountain at inhospitable times of year. Photo: Shutterstock

People take pictures of Mount Fuji from a viewing area in Yamanashi prefecture, Japan. Photo: EPA-EFE

The Hotaka mountain range in Japan’s Northern Alps. Tourism operators say Japanese hikers are often presumed to be more responsible than foreigners. Photo: Getty Images

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Tourists travel on a subway train to Tokyo’s city centre from Narita International Airport. Photo: AFP

Tourists crowd around a suspension bridge in Kamikochi, a highland resort in Japan’s Nagano prefecture, in April. Photo: Kyodo

Tourists visit Tokyo’s Asakusa district last month. Tourism, domestic and inbound combined, accounts for roughly 5.6 per cent of Japan’s gross domestic product. Photo: Kyodo

Foreign tourists take selfies with a statue of Buddha in the Asakusa area of Tokyo in April. Last year, 42.7 million foreign visitors arrived in Japan, a record. Photo: Getty Images/TNS/AFP

Tourists stroll past sake barrels displayed at the Meiji Jingu shrine in Tokyo. Japan is eyeing 60 million tourist arrivals a year by 2030. Photo: EPA

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People walk along Takeshita Street, Harajuku, Tokyo. The number of tourist arrivals in Japan rose by 15.8 per cent to a record 42.7 million last year. Photo: EPA

Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi speaks at a media conference in Tokyo on Monday. Her comments in November over Taiwan have angered mainland China, prompting it to advise its citizens to avoid travel to Japan. Photo: AFP

Tourists walk through the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest in Kyoto, Japan. Photo: Getty Images

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Tourists take pictures as cloud-clad Mount Fuji is seen in the background from Oishi park in the town of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi prefecture,  Japan, on Saturday. Photo: AFP

Foreign tourists pack Kiyomizuzaka near Kiyomizu temple in Kyoto, western Japan, on October 15. Photo: Kyodo

A departure lobby at Tokyo’s Haneda airport is crowded with passengers in May. Japan introduced a departure tax for all passengers, including Japanese travelling for leisure or business, in 2019. Photo: Kyodo

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Data from the Kyoto City Tourism Association shows a sharp decline in Chinese overnight stays as a result of growing bilateral tensions


Data from the Kyoto City Tourism Association shows a sharp decline in Chinese overnight stays as a result of growing bilateral tensions.


Chinese tourists blamed for overtourism in Japan’s Kyoto despite huge fall in arrivals

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Data from the Kyoto City Tourism Association shows a sharp decline in Chinese overnight stays as a result of growing bilateral tensions

Data from the Kyoto City Tourism Association shows a sharp decline in Chinese overnight stays as a result of growing bilateral tensions