On two recent occasions, foreign tourists came into Matsumoto Shoji's barber shop and asked for a haircut through the front door, which creaks loudly when opened more than halfway.
One was Italian, the other British, and Matsumoto, 75 and unable to speak either language, didn't know what to say to them. He picked up a pair of scissors and began to cut, hoping his decades of experience would help him get through an awkward encounter.
Since COVID-19-related entry restrictions were eased in 2022, Japan has been flooded with tourists, partly due to the weak yen. Some government officials, including Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, have expressed concern about overtourism. In March, the number of international tourists exceeded 3 million, a new monthly record, and up more than 10% from March 2019.
About two-thirds of foreign tourists are from South Korea, Taiwan and China. Last year, spending by foreign tourists accounted for about 9 percent of Japan's gross domestic product.
Popular tourist destinations in cities like Japan's ancient royal capital, Kyoto, are becoming increasingly unmanageable, with tourists flocking to previously unseen places, such as small towns near Mount Fuji and the Kyoto shopping district where Matsumoto runs her salon.
“Before, it was normal to have tourists in certain places,” Matsumoto said on a recent Saturday, sitting on a low stool in his barbershop, “but now tourists are scattered in random and unexpected places.”
The influx is generally testing polite society's patience.
In tourist-heavy cities such as Kyoto, residents complain that hotel rooms are too expensive, buses and restaurants are overcrowded and they can't get in. They also say tourists are disrespecting local customs, such as chasing geisha to take photos or eating while walking, which are considered rude in Japan.
One day last month, Hiroshi Saka took six hours, twice as long as usual, to visit Kyoto's Heian Shrine, and Mr. Saka, 65, blamed some of the delays on tourists holding up buses while counting their coins to pay for their fares.
“Every day is like a carnival here,” said event organizer Van. “We can't enjoy our daily lives in peace.”
Even those who directly benefit from tourism revenue worry that it will become unsustainable.
Kobayashi Hisashi, a taxi driver in Kyoto, said work is going so well that taking time off would feel like missing out on easy money. But he said many tourism-related industries are struggling to keep up with demand as they recover from pandemic-era labor shortages.
“When Japanese people come here, they feel like they're in a foreign country because there are so many tourists,” added Kobayashi, 56, as his taxi approached a traffic jam near the popular temple. “It's not Kyoto anymore.”
Some rural areas are feeling the strain for the first time, including Fuji City, about 200 miles east of Kyoto on the Shizuoka Prefecture road.
Late last year, after the bridge offering a direct view of Mount Fuji began to gain popularity on social media, the Shizuoka City Tourism Bureau said on Instagram that it was a good place to take “beautiful, dreamy photos.” It failed to mention that the bridge is in a residential area and has no parking spaces, public toilets or trash cans for visitors.
Residents in interviews said many tourists littered, parked in private roads and, in some cases, dodged traffic to take photos from the bridge's median.
Mitsuo Kato, 86, who lives near the bridge, said about 300 tourists came each day for four days over the national holiday last month, queuing up along the path to take photos.
“They just park their cars here,” Kato said outside his home on a recent Sunday, as a group of South Korean tourists eagerly took photos of the clouds obscuring Mount Fuji. “That's why we had to put up the signs.”
Authorities across Japan have responded to the surge in tourists with varying degrees of effectiveness.
In Fuji city, authorities have built a temporary parking lot for six cars and have started construction on a larger one that can accommodate 15 cars and has toilets, said Motohiro Sano, an official at the local tourism bureau.
In neighboring Yamanashi prefecture, officials in the town of Fujikawaguchiko last month installed a billboard-sized screen to stop tourists taking photos of a Lawson convenience store. The blue awning sits at the base of the mountain and has become a staple of social media posts, with local news media reporting that its screen now has holes large enough to fit cell phone camera lenses.
Tokyo's tourist-heavy Shibuya district has announced plans to ban drinking outdoors at night in a bid to curb inappropriate behaviour among young people and tourists.
In Kyoto, train station signs have urged tourists to “observe good manners,” and the government began operating special buses for tourists this month.
At the city's Nishiki Market, where residents have complained about oil stains on their clothes after pushing their way through throngs of tourists, Yoshino Yamaoka gestured to two signs outside her grilled eel shop.
Both signs said “No eating while walking” in English, though one of them was in a larger font with the words underlined in red.
“People didn't comply, so I put up a stricter tone this time,” Yamaoka, 63, said of the bold signs. But she wonders whether her new approach is too strict.
“Our business depends on tourists,” she said.
On a recent weekend, some tourists visited Kyoto's top spots at sunrise to avoid the crowds, or waited 40 minutes to eat at a popular ramen restaurant at 11 p.m. — and complained about the congestion they caused.
“This is a disaster,” said Paul Oosthveen, 70, a tourist from the Netherlands, as he left Kiyomizu-dera temple, a popular tourist attraction.
In the empty barbershop, Matsumoto said he gave two foreign customers a good haircut and that he wouldn't turn away anyone else who just wandered in.
But he said he was concerned about providing quality service to customers who could not understand Japanese and would like non-Japanese speaking customers to go elsewhere.
Tourism is good for the country, he adds over a low radio rumble, but “there are some parts that we're not entirely happy with.”
