Japanese Travelers Avoiding Kyoto

Above, visitors on the stage of Kyoto's Kiyomizu-dera, Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Anyone planning a visit to Japan should at least pay a visit to Kyoto at least once. It is one beautiful filled with ancient Japanese culture.

The numbers of foreign visitors to Kyoto is on the rise, but the number of Japanese visitors have been declining. 

According to SoraNews24:

If you’re planning a trip to Japan, Kyoto is pretty much a must-add to your itinerary. While it may not be the nation’s political capital any more, it remains very much the heart of Japan’s cultural traditions, and its beautiful temples, shrines, and gardens are exactly the sort of images that grace the covers of travel guides and then stay in the hearts of visitors. 

At the same time, however, Japanese travelers who’re planning a trip within their home country are increasingly staying away from Kyoto. A recent study by the Kyoto City Tourism Association and Kyoto Convention Bureau found that in December of 2018, the number of Japanese people staying at major hotels within the Kyoto city limits had dropped by 12.2 percent compared to the same month in 2017. For November, the compared-to-2017 drop was also a sizable 10.7 percent, despite it being the height of the fall color season, when travelers traditionally flock to Kyoto to see the changing leaves. As a matter of fact, December 2018 was the 21st consecutive compared-to-the-previous-year monthly decrease.  

So what’s causing Japanese travelers to stay away from Kyoto? According to hoteliers the researchers interviewed, a huge factor is the huge crowds. 

I was last in Kyoto in October 2015. While there were crowds, they weren't what I would call "overwhelming".

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