Bianca Cheung, TOUR-3210
October 31, 2025

Introduction

Tourism is a complex, open, human-made, and feedback system. It functions by processing external inputs, and this output is returned as feedback that put back to the system, which may cause positive and/or negative impacts on it (SAIT, 2025a). Phenomenology also plays an important role in the tourism industry. It focuses on people’s feelings, experiences, meanings, and relationships (SAIT, 2025a).

Once the tourism system receives an excess of negative feedbacks from various tourism stakeholders, including tourists and locals, it may cause degrowth. Degrowth is the process of downsizing of tourism by reducing the resources used and waste produced by tourism activities, particularly within very touristified areas (Murray et al, 2025). The point of view will switch from a humanist perspective of “tourism facilitates encounters, knowledge, communication and peace” to a critical perspective of “tourism causes negative effects on the environment, society, and culture” (SAIT, 2025a). The paper analyses tourism impacts and sustainability in Japan, which is experiencing overtourism and is now considering strategies like degrowth.

Figure 1: Residents protest in Kamakura, Japan, against overtourism

Background and Context

In 2003, Junichiro Koizumi, who was the Prime Minister of Japan, launched the Visit Japan Campaign and set a goal of attracting 10 million visitors by 2010, with using visa relaxation, infrastructure investment, internal marketing as tourism strategies (Schedule Coordination, 2008). In 2008, the Japan Tourism Agency was established as a dedicated government agency under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (Schedule Coordination, 2008).

Japan’s tourism industry has experienced incredible growth over the past two decades. From 2003 to 2010, the number of visitors increased from 5.2 million to 8.6 million (Koyama, 2025). Even though it was slightly below the 10 million target, largely due to 2008 financial crisis, this goal was achieved in 2013 (Koyama, 2025). In 2020, the COVID-19 border closures had an enormous impact for global tourism, including in Japan. However, Japan’s tourism sector has seen a rapid recovery post pandemic (Koyama, 2025). Japan has achieved a 600% growth in tourism over the past 21 years.

Figure 2: Trend of Japan’s Inbound Tourism Growth

Snapshot

Because of the uniqueness of Japan’s rich cultural heritage spanning thousands of years and its blend of traditional and modern attractions, Japan is positioned as one of the major global tourism destinations and one of the most visited Asian nations by international tourists (Hauzan & Subagio, 2025).

Japan is divided into eight regions. Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Nagoya are major cities in Japan as well as the most popular travel destinations for local and international travelers, which are located in Kanto, Kansai, and Chubu regions (JNTO, n.d.-a). Serving these major cities are Haneda Airport (HND), Narita Airport (NRT), and Kansai International Airport (KIX), which makes them to be Japan’s three busiest international airports among over 80 airports nationwide (JNTO, n.d.-b). Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka form the “Golden” Route”, which means the most iconic and perfect first trip for first time visitors (Weissmann, 2018)

Figure 3: Regions of Japan

Holiday, leisure and recreation are the most popular reasons for personal travelers to Japan with 67% of the market (Weissmann, 2018). The most popular activities include sightseeing at cultural sites, cherry blossom viewing, nature experiences, visiting hot springs, and winter sports (Weissmann, 2018). Due to the weak yen, shopping, which includes food tourism, has also become a major draw for international tourists recently (Housingjapan, 2025).

Figure 4: Japan’s Top Tourist Motivations (2024)

Tourism Impacts

Tourism can cause both positive and negative impacts to the local communities. This paper will examine how tourism impacts Japan’s economic, political, environmental, social and cultural.

Economic

Tourism provides a strong economic contribution and fosters job creation. Jobs in the hospitality and tourism industry are often held by women, young people, immigrants, and those have lower levels of formal education (SAIT, 2025). Tourism provides a large amount of entry level jobs that help those individuals to enter the local workforce, gain work experience, and achieve financial independence. In Japan, 6 million jobs created across accommodation, food services, retail, transportation, entertainment or recreation (WTTC, 2023). Tourism creates a larger market that expands the market beyond local to include tourists, and it leads to a redistribution of money, as tourists from wealthier countries spend money in the lower income destinations (SAIT, 2025). With the benefits of foreign exchange, tourism creates a strong economic contribution. In 2023, tourism contributed $285.5 billion USD to Japan’s gross domestic product (GDP) (WTTC, 2023).

Tourism also stimulates local businesses and creates spillover effect. Spillover effect is a chain reaction of benefits created by tourism revenue, and those revenue also benefit other industries, for example, construction gets more projects due to tourism infrastructure projects (SAIT, 2025). For example, rural areas in Japan also receive economic benefits from tourism (Hirabayashi, 2025).

Tourism also creates a number of negative economic impacts. Gentrification, which means local can no longer afford to live in their own community, is one of the examples (SAIT, 2025). In Japan, many houses are bought by investors and causing young people to be unable to afford live in city centers (Noda, 2025). Demand pull inflation is another example. Due to increasing demand of services and products from tourism activities, goods and services are more expensive in popular tourist cities in Japan, and locals must pay higher prices (Noda, 2025).

Political

Tourism helps policy development. Legal public policies help implement new regulation and enforce existing law (SAIT, 2025). Some of Japan’s national tourism policies are designed to reduce bureaucratic redundancy and conflicting policies thorough coordination between key ministries of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Foreign Affairs, Culture, Environment, and Economy (Schedule Coordination, 2008).

However, tourism also create negative political impacts, such as political tensions. Recently, Japan is experiencing a rise in political movement caused by rising xenophobic sentiments and anti-tourism, for example, the social media campaigns against “badly behaved foreigners” and the recent protests in Japan on government’s plan to bring in more immigrants from India, Bangladesh and Africa (Lau et al., 2025).

Environmental

Tourism creates possible conservation funding and helps fund the preservation and protection, which leads to an incentive for protecting the environment (SAIT, 2025). For example, in Japan, the government allocates more budget into infrastructure and maintenance of historical sites, national park entrance fees are used to support wildlife conservation, and UNESCO World Heritage Site fees are used for preservation work (Hirabayashi, 2025) (Hughs, 2025).

However, tourism also creates environmental damage, such as overcrowding and waste generation. Popular destinations such as Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and Mount Fuji have struggled to manage the surge in visitors, leading to increased waste (Noda, 2025). Excessive foot traffic damages UNESCO heritage sites while excessive trash overwhelms local facilities (Sekarani & Widiandari, 2023).

Social & Cultural

Tourism helps to revitalize local culture and create local pride and reinforcement (SAIT, 2025). In Japan, tourism has served as a catalyst for rediscovering and taking pride in local attractions as locals became more interested in local attractions such as nature, history, culture and cuisine (Hirabayashi, 2025). Cultural exchange and learning are the other examples of positive social and cultural impacts. Tourism helps Japanese locals develop a deeper understanding of different cultures and crease diverse ways of thinking (Hirabayashi, 2025)

However, tourists’ misbehavior may lead to damage to heritage sites. In Japan, disrespectful tourist behavior, such as unauthorized photography and tourists climbing on shrines, inappropriate behavior at memorial sites, demonstrates a lack of respect for the Japanese culture and causes physical damage to the sites (Hirabayashi, 2025). Tourism also led to a significant of traffic. Japan’s transportation systems have been deteriorating due to overtourism and rising demand (Hirabayashi, 2025).

Tourism Policy – Government Incentives & Sustainable Practices

The Japanese government recognizes both the opportunities and challenges by its growing tourism industry, it has set ambitious targets, aiming for 60 million annual visitors by 2030 (Noda, 2025). At the same time, it is implementing measures to mitigate the negative consequences of overtourism (Noda, 2025). For example, the government is increasing the tourism tax and this revenue will go towards to infrastructure improvements and sustainable tourism development (Noda, 2025). They are also imposing stricter regulations for visitors to Mount Fuji including a mandatory fee as well as a daily limit of 4000 climbers to manage overcrowding (Noda, 2025).

The Japanese government also created other strategies focused on promoting secondary destinations, improving transportation and using technology to solve the crowding issue (JETRO, 2025). For example, introducing express buses connecting tourist spots to reduce public transport burden, developing better rail and bus connections to secondary destinations, and creating incentive programs for visiting multiple regions (JETRO, 2025).

Ethical Considerations

This paper will analyze the ethical considerations from a utilitarianism point of view. Utilitarianism is a consequence based theory that focuses on which action will promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people (SAIT, 2025c). Although tourism creates different levels of economic, political, environmental, social and cultural impacts for Japan, the results show that it can help to promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Tourism creates a significant economic impact that benefits a large number of stakeholders, including locals, local business owners, hospitality workers, and the government. As the Japanese government is implementing different strategies to minimize the negative consequences of mass tourism, it is actively working to maximize the positive utility for the greatest number of people.

Strategic Recommendations

Tourism plays an important role in Japan’s economy, and the government wants to attract more international visitors to support economic growth. Therefore, strengthening education and enforcement has become one of the key strategies for improving the overall tourism outcomes.

First, the Japanese government could strengthen the promotion of responsible tourist behavior through pre-arrival information campaigns, for example, social media campaigns that contrast proper and improper behavior. Implementing and increasing multilingual signage about cultural etiquette at all major sites and enforcing fines for violations, including littering, restricted area access, and harassment, would directly reduce instances of disrespectful behavior and protect the local environment.

However, there are a number of possible barriers, which include slowing bureaucratic processes delaying interventions, limited enforcement powers for local governments, and creating national versus local priority conflicts, where the national government wants growth while locals want restrictions.

Conclusion

Japan’s tourism industry has experienced incredible growth over the past two decades and the government has set ambitious targets, aiming for 60 million annual visitors by 2030 (Noda, 2025). As one of the most visited Asian nations by international tourists, Japan is now experiencing overtourism and is considering strategies like degrowth. This paper has examined tourism’s economic, political, environmental, social and cultural impacts on Japan. Overall, tourism creates significant benefits for Japan.

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