TOO MUCH OF A GOOD Japan is on pace to hit 30m tourists in 2018, amid signs

of fatigue with the unfamiliar influx of foreigners. Last

THING: TOURISM
year’s 28.7m was the previous record, a three-fold rise
since 2008, and a once unthinkable goal of 40m could
be hit by 2020. In a country once largely overlooked
on the global tourism trail, the figures are being
trumpeted by the government. But Tokyo’s already
crowded buses and trains are now even more
congested. Businesses in Kyoto, the country’s ancient
capital, moan they are being overrun by hordes of
noisy gaijin. Such complaints—and fears of a popular
backlash—have triggered a survey of local
governments to discover ways tourists and residents
can rub along. Yet there is no turning the tide. As the
population falls and the economy shrinks, the one
thing worse than kanko kogai, or “tourism pollution”,
says one expert, is no tourism at all.

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