KKyoto

Looking for information on overtourism in Kyoto: local associations, resident strategies, and the rental market impact

  • August 24, 2025

Hi everyone,
I'm doing research on overtourism in Kyoto and I’m especially interested in three aspects:

  1. Local associations or grassroots groups working on overtourism or related issues (housing rights, short-term rental regulations, urban commons, etc.). If you're aware of any active initiatives in Kyoto addressing overtourism, I'd love to hear more.

  2. Everyday strategies by residents to cope with or resist mass tourism. This could include collective actions or small daily adjustments—alternative routes, “locals-only” shops, symbolic protests, humor, anything that reflects how people adapt or push back in their daily lives.

  3. Impact on the rental market: I’m particularly interested in insights, data, or stories about how overtourism is affecting housing prices and availability in Kyoto. Are there examples of displacement, gentrification, or changes in the local housing landscape—especially linked to short-term rentals?

Thank you!

by Consistent_Juice2864

5 comments

  1. If you walk south of Hankyu Rakuhoku square in Sakyo-ku (on the east side, not the Kawabata dori side) you’ll see some flags and placards out stating opposition to opening up 民泊 in the area. Would be worth following up on I think

  2. It’s over hyped there are a few areas that are over “toured,” but those are the areas where the tourists are intentionally funneled into. For example, the road up to Kiyomizudera is cram packed with tourist and shops on both sides selling trinkety tourist stuff but if you go a street over either way there are barely tourist and if you go the most beautiful way up through Otani cemetery there is may 3 people. I honestly don’t hear people complaining about tourists but more about foreigners of certain races living here. Well people do complain about the busses being overcrowded.

  3. I’ve been there quite a few times, the last one in 2018, and a friend of mine, an educated woman in her 40s (that lives in Kyoto), was already fed up back then with tourists clogging up public transportation like buses, etc.

  4. Some historical images of Kyoto overtourism:

    洛中洛外図屏風

    清水寺参詣曼荼羅

    What I want to point out is that Kyoto, as the long-standing capital of Japan, has always been a very crowded place.

  5. I think people would be more willing to share if you said who you were and why you’re doing research on this. Is this for a paper, is this for a YouTube video, what? What’s your angle and why?

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