Overcrowding and Overtourism in Japan: New Solutions for Sustainable Travel

Published on November 24, 2025

Japan’s overcoming travel restrictions and opening its border to all nations have fueled growth in the tourism sector. Inbound tourism in Japan during October 2025 saw record visitation of 3,896,300. This is a 17.6% increase over 2024, making a total of over 35.5 million visitors in 2025. Peak foliage season brings tourists to scenic destinations along the Japan Alps, such as the Kamikōchi in Nagano and the popular temples of Kyoto. With Japan set to achieve 40 million visitors by the end of 2025, the country maintains its position as one of the top travel destinations in the world. Overtourism and the visitor behaviour cycles pose dire concerns to Japan’s equitable hospitality, to trail towns and landscapes, and to the communities where popular attractions are located. Municipalities in Japan balance the rapid expansion of tourism with the need to sustainable defend and manage Japan’s cultural and natural heritage. The unprecedented number of tourism expansion in Japan poses serious concerns /.

Recording Visitor Numbers and the Attraction of Japan’s Autumn Season

The autumn season is the most travelled in Japan because international tourists love the autumn momiji leaves red and oranges, the golden ginkgo and the overall autumn colored scenery where the entire country is covered in the fall season’s beautiful and scenic earth tones, considered the most beautiful momiji leaves. Japan’s popular tourist destinations, like Nara, Kyoto, and Kamikōchi, are most sought after in the highly travelled autumn season, whic,h coupled with Japan’s autumn leaves, makes intetnational travelers and tourists to plan their Kyoto trips during the autumn momiji leaves indicating the highly sought after trend oftravel tourism during the autumn season.

Ongoing success of Japan’s tourism sector is represented in Japan National Tourism Organization’s Achievement of 3.9 million Japanese tourists in October 2025. Japan’s international visitors are an indication of Japan’s tourism potential as travellers and tourists around the world continue to visit Japan, reaffirming Japan’s in travel and tourism world top position with travelers, tourists especially coming from Europe, Asia, and the United States.

Overtourism: A Growing Concern for Japanese Municipalities

While positive tourism figures are being recorded for several regions of Japan, overtourism is becoming an increasing concern for a number of regions in Japan. During tourist peaks, popular Japanese destinations such as Kyoto, Tokyo, and Osaka become heavily congested. Well-known tourist attractions become overcrowded with foot and automobile traffic, and natural sites, such as Kappa Bridge and the Kamikōchi National Park, become littered with refuse. Kamikōchi, an area in the Nagano Prefecture with UNESCO world heritage designation, has been sharply increasing in tourist visitation. As a consequence, the infrastructure and natural ecological systems become increasingly strained.

Overcrowding and its resultant issues are an area of concern for local municipal authorities. How to balance the positive and negative of tourist traffic is Managing the Overcrowding of described as a paradox: for places such as Kamikōchi that revolve around the beauty of the Japanese Alps and other natural landscape features such as perennial streams and rivers, authorities develop ways to lessen the negative impact on the local ecosystem, social systems, and urban infrastructure. Off-product tourism, attraction and destination diversion, and a balanced system of positive and negative eco-keys (that is a system of a tourist region that has a relative balance of positive and negative eco-impact systems) to the region are basic strategies implemented to protect the negative impacts on the local ecosystem, social systems, and urban infrastructure from being environmentally unsustainable.

Visitor Management and Impact of Visitors

Japan is also experiencing new issues with visitor control. Major tourist areas are experiencing issues of disorderly conduct such as littering, shouting, and lack of adherence to traditional customs. These issues have led local governments and the travel industry to educate and advocate the principles of courteous travel.

New travel advise from municipalities is to include quiet hours, reminders of expectations to maintain traditions and customs, and more active policing of littering and waste discipline. These objectives are directed towards maintaining the tourism industry and ensuring visiting patrons of the country’s landscapes and rich cultural heritage do not overwhelm local communities.

Efforts and Challenges to Customised Tourism

The overwhelming number of visitors has led many areas of the country to focus on customised tourism. The government has taken steps to promote tourism that is responsible while also implementing controls to make travel eco-friendly. Accessibility to electric buses has been increased along with many other initiatives aimed at reducing carbon emissions. The government also promotes carbon offset programs on international flights.

Moreover, local tourism boards are concentrating their attention on the creation of eco-tourism initiatives that will enable and entice visitors to travel to and explore lesser-known destinations, diffusing the economic and social benefits of tourism into rural and out-of-the-way areas. This assists in relieving the pressure on the popular tourist hubs and also motivates visitors to find and appreciate the unseen tourist attractions available in Japan.

The Future of Tourism in Japan.

The overall tourism sector in Japan will continue to grow but will have to deal with the impact of overtourism and the behaviour of visitors for the industry to remain viable. The country will also have to continue to focus on sustainable tourism, off-season travel, and the educational promotion of the need to respect the local customs of the countries visited to sustain their ability to be recognized as and leading tourism destination and their tourism cultural and natural resources.

With the approaching 2026 Olympics and Japan’s rich legacy, the country’s tourism will have to continued to be flexible and innovative to meet the prospective benefits and fast-changing travel world.

Conclusion

The number of October visitors illustrates the impressive popularity growth of Japan as a travel destination. It can also contribute to the challenges of managing responsible visitor behavior and overtourism. Japan is becoming a main travel destination and travel hub and we travel authorities and tourists must freely cooperate on the demand to supervise the culture and natural resources to provide the tourists with extraordinary experiences and keep Japan’s culture alive and preserve its nature for the future.