Most people in Japan would agree that the country has been increasingly facing issues with overtourism. Every time a new record is broken in inbound tourism, the news is awash with people talking about it.
However, a recent analysis by Tokyo Shimbun / Kyodo News finds that just seven prefectures account for 72 of the country’s top 100 locations with the highest foreign-visitor ratios. In fact, 25 prefectures don’t have a single hotspot in the top 100 at all.
Location, location, location
Unsurprisingly, Kyoto leads the list with 17 locations in the top 100. Closely behind is Hokkaido (16), followed by Kanagawa (11, mostly in the Hakone hot-springs zone). Yamanashi, Osaka, Okinawa, and Tokyo all follow with six to eight locations apiece.
The single most popular – and thus most overcrowded – area is the Niseko Resort in Hokkaido. There have been complaints about overtourism for years. This led Kutchan Town to introduce a development cap, sōryō kisei, in 2023.
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto ranks 12th on the overall list. Ginzan Onsen, in Yamagata, ranked even higher – 4th. However, it’s the only place in the entire Tohoku Region that even makes the top 100.
A separate survey by the JNTO (Japan National Tourism Organization) showed that in 2025 the top 5 most visited prefectures (Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hokkaido, Okinawa) accounted for a staggering 69.7% of all foreign overnight stays.
This same survey reveals that 31 other prefectures accounted for less than 1% individually.
To obtain this data, Tokyo Shimbun partnered with Kyodo News and Tokyo-based IT company unerry, which runs the “Beacon Bank for インバウンド (inboundo)” service. This tracked the real-time location data of foreign visitors from 20 different countries via beacon and app software development kit (SDK) installations.
Responses from the tourist industry, local and national governments
The Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA, 日本旅行業協会) called in its June 2025 submission to the government’s Fifth National Tourism Promotion Basic Plan for strengthening regional dispersal of inbound visitors.
Meanwhile, the Fifth National Tourism Promotion Basic Plan (閣議決定 2026-03-27) preserves the 2030 goal of 60 million inbound visitors and ¥15 trillion (~$96.2 billion USD at ¥156/USD) in spending. It’s added a target of 40 million repeat visitors that intend to travel to these lesser-visited areas (up from 36M previously) and 130 million regional-area overnight stays.
The plan also more than doubles – from 47 to 100 regions – the number of areas working towards the explicit goal of “balancing strategic visitor attraction with quality of resident life.”
At the local level, Obanazawa City in Yamagata started a tourism agency park and ride pilot program at Ginzan Onsen that restricted the number of private vehicles that could visit daily. This came after the 2024/5 Winter Season saw 330,000 visitors, which is 22x the city’s population. This caused conflicts to break out at photo spots and stopped emergency vehicles from being able to reach their destinations.
The pilot ended on March 1st, 2026, but the results were positive enough that further restrictive measures are being studied.
Kutchan Town in the Niseko area implemented its own “total volume regulation” on resort development in October 2023. Despite this, December-January saw drives that would normally take 10 minutes take up to an hour. A Nikkei feature found that waiting for taxis sometimes took three hours.
As we have covered elsewhere, sites like Himeji Castle have introduced dual-pricing systems to steady the flow. Many other places in Japan are taking similar approaches.
Off the Golden Route – alternatives to the top 100
We’ve previously recommended places such as Fukuoka, Morioka, Katsuyama, Kanazawa and more as alternatives for tourists. Aside from that, areas like the Hokuriku Region (Niigata, Toyama, Fukui) offer their own unique experiences and are off the so-called Golden Route, which covers the most popular tourist spots.
Some of the experiences include the excellent rice and sake in Niigata (where both Nagaoka and Niigata Stations have sake vending machines), and places like Maruoka Castle in Fukui, which is one of the 12 remaining original castles in Japan.
Many tourists rarely visit places like Shimane Prefecture, which features the gorgeous Izumo Taisha Grand Shrine. There’s also the island of Shikoku and all its charms, such as the gorgeous Shikoku Karst, a geological formation made by eroded limestone hills, are also largely ignored as well.
No place left behind
Japan is a fairly large country, and it has many sites that even Japanese people rarely visit. While overtourism is a problem, it is only so in certain areas. The Japanese national and local governments are pushing out various plans to spread tourists more evenly across the land.
However, other things can be done to help. Strategies include subsidizing Shinkansen journeys to less-visited areas, as well as helping less-visited regions get help with international advertising.
There’s still much to be done. But as anyone who’s lived long enough in Japan can tell you, even the most out-of-the-way sites have their charm – and deserve to be seen by travelers.
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Sources
【独自】訪日客、７都道府県に集中 上位１００地点、２５県なし 東京新聞デジタル
【訪日客７都道府県に集中】偏る滞在先、分散が急務 地方の魅力、どう発信 沖縄タイムス＋プラス（共同通信配信）
2026年度からの新「観光立国推進基本計画」の注目ポイントは？ 訪日リピーター数4000万人、住民生活との両立は倍増100地域 トラベルボイス
訪日外客統計 日本政府観光局（JNTO）
「第五次観光立国推進基本計画」への提言書を提出 一般社団法人日本旅行業協会（JATA）
unerry、訪日中の外国人旅行客の人流をリアルタイムに捉える「Beacon Bank for インバウンド」を提供開始 株式会社unerry
銀山温泉「マイカーで入らないで」 オーバーツーリズム対策で年末年始に実証実験 山形・尾花沢市 河北新報オンライン
ニセコや美瑛、インバウンドは「悪者」か オーバーツーリズム岐路 日本経済新聞
銀山温泉が入場規制、写真撮影場所めぐりけんかや怒号 観光公害深刻化 CNN.co.jp
2025年9月の訪日宿泊 外国人宿泊数は微増、地方が堅調に伸長。三重・新潟・鳥取で大幅増 やまとごころ.jp