When asked why he’d stopped dining at a restaurant he used to frequent, Yogi Berra famously answered “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.” It’s one of many famous quotes from the Hall of Fame baseball player and manager that’s colorful but not-quite sensical, and yet it might actually be applicable to Kyoto, at least with one demographic.
In Japan, there’s a custom of shugaku ryokou, or “school trips.” These aren’t class trips to celebrate graduation, but multi-day school-administered travels taken in the middle of the school year, usually to sites of historical or cultural importance.
If “history and culture” has you immediately thinking of Kyoto, Japan’s former capital, you’re not alone. Statistics from Japan’s Educational Tour Institute showing that in 2022 Kyoto was the top destination for school trips for middle schools in Japan, followed by Nara and Osaka, which like Kyoto are part of Japan’s Kinki region. Osaka and Kyoto were also the No. 1 and No. 2 destinations, respectively, for high schools’ school trips, with Nara ranking fifth.
The institute’s research also shows that in 2023 roughly 90 percent of public middle schools in Japan’s eastern Kanto region (which includes the country’s two most populous cities, Tokyo and Yokohama) took their school trips to Kinki. However, the majority of Kanto middle schools, 54 percent of them, say that they are considering avoiding Kinki for future trips, with growing tourist crowds believed to be a major reason why.
With the yen continuing to be extremely weak against other currencies, Japan is seeing record numbers of inbound foreign tourists, and many of them are spending a large chunk of their time in Kyoto, whose shrines, temples, and preserved historical districts are an undeniably alluring look at Japan’s traditional culture, whether it’s someone’s first of fifth visit to Japan. But with Kyoto’s major attractions being old buildings, it’s not like they can simply expand them to absorb mushrooming tourist numbers, and the result is that many of Kyoto’s most famous landmarks, which are also often the ones of greatest historical significance, have become very crowded.
The concern for schools isn’t so much that a bunch of noisy tourists might spoil the popular-image tranquility of Kyoto’s temples and shrines, but that the logistic problems larger crowds create. Overcrowding can make it difficult for school groups to gain admission to historical sites or navigate them in a timely manner, reducing the number of sites that can be visited on the trip. The tourism boom is also causing hotel prices in Kyoto to soar, which can’t be making things easier for schools trying to stick to a reasonable budget for their trips. Staying farther away from the Kyoto city center can alleviate costs, but with the tradeoff of longer transit times from the lodgings to historical sites, again lessening the educational potential of the trip.
So while Kyoto isn’t likely to run out of tourists any time soon, it’s likely that fewer kids will be seeing the city on their school trips.
Source: Yomiuri Shimbun via Itai News
Read more stories from SoraNews24.
-- Japanese travelers are avoiding Kyoto as the city’s number of foreign visitors continues to grow
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- External Link
- https://soranews24.com/2024/10/19/kyoto-losing-its-luster-as-a-school-trip-destination-as-tourist-crowds-continue-to-swell/
14 Comments
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Mr Kipling
Kyoto in a nutshell.... Temple, shrine, temple, shrine, temple, shrine...macha!
There are other, more interesting places for the kids to visit.
wallace
There are excellent art museums.
deanzaZZR
Kanto kids can hop on a bullet train and alight in Kanazawa in a little over 2 hours. There is a good chance many of the kids have never visited the Sea of Japan side of the country.
Moonraker
Can't say I would miss them. Years ago it was not respectful foreign tourists, it was hordes of schoolkids disturbing the peace at every place you'd visit. I mean, they were not even interested. Nobody apologised to the other visitors for having their "Kyoto experience" interrupted by this intrusion.
Negative Nancy
I'll say it because nobody else will- foreign tourists are worth more money than school groups, and all this is by design.
GBR48
So we are eating all the rice, desecrating the temples with fitness routines, and destroying the kids' educations. Anything else?
kohakuebisu
I don't think they are actually "growing" by any significant amount. The discussion/hype about Kyoto being crowded is definitely growing though. You'd think it was the biggest problem in Japanese society.
Mr Kipling
Look kids... another old or rebuilt to look old temple, quickly, lets hurry to the next one...
Why not go to Okinawa or its often cheaper to visit overseas. Singapore, Taiwan or Korea would all be much more interesting than seeing temple after temple.
Mocheake
There are lots of other interesting places to go and one needs to just think outside the box. If you're looking for temples and shrines, Kumano Kodo and Nikko fit the bill. Lots of castles and plenty of nature spots are available throughout the country. Times change. People change. As Steve Winwood would say, roll with it.
enmaai
Glad my sons school have no interest in visiting that area. They all went to Okinawa.
Some dude
When have i ever said there wasn’t a pandemic?
Well, pretty much every day in the old "Japan announces X new cases" posts and on pretty much every Covid related thread that has ever existed.
Apart from that, yeah, sure, never.
SapperJon
On a recent holiday in May to Japan, our fifth we based ourselves in Osaka firstly next to Shin-Osaka station to use our JR West pass and also to visit Hikone and Kyoto and later moved to Namba. We stayed in Kyoto on our very first holiday and went back to visit a couple of places we missed. For us, it didn't appear to be any busier than in 2008, and we saw at Kyoto station what could only have been nearly a whole senior school sat down outside waiting to board a train. And just like in Nara in 2008 we were approached by senior school children who had a range of questions to practice their English skills. We never mind this where ever we travel with similar experiences in Seoul. What we do mind when I ask is that they always assume we are from the USA which obviously is a little insulting in a light-hearted way especially as Americans don't speak English correctly along with miss pronunciation and spelling.
SalarymanDaishi
After twelve trips to Japan, I only once visited Kyoto and it left a very stark "not again" vibe, much thanks to (us) tourists. It really is mostly about temples and shrines, anyhow, and there are plenty of those all around. It's admittedly silly to criticize a city while contributing to the problem but that one visit taught Kyoto overtourism is real.
Of the big cities, Nagoya always feels like a fresh breeze; big city vibe but not (yet) an influx of (other) tourists to make it uncomfortable.
HooKnows
The irony here is beyond delicious.