malloc

Went to the sand dunes of Tottori yesterday, only saw a handful for foreigners.
But today I arrived in Kinosaki Onsen, and there is a lot of westerners walking around in the streets here.
Not sure what draws people this this location exactly, but maybe it is the easy access with limited express trains from Osaka, Kyoto and Himeji?
I arrived on a local train from Tottori, with transfer in Hamasaka which was quite "local" as expected. ;-)

LapLap

Combination of it’s reputation as the “BEST” Onsen resort in Japan since back when published English language guides such as Lonely Planet tiered the worthiness of destination and also it coming up prominently on internet searches as a place where those with tattoos can bathe.
I can tell you that the proportion of Spaniards under 40, who are keen to visit Japan and also have tattoos is well over 50%. Brits in the same demographic can’t be very far behind.

Sadly, not very many children outside of Japan grew up with Aki & The Fox (Kon to Aki), a beautiful book where Tottori’s sand dunes are featured prominently
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1783175
I do wonder if Kon the fox is discoverable in the local souvenir shops.

malloc

Interesting! I did see a lot of tattoos on people actually so that makes sense.

freecia

I would also guess Kinosaki's international Tourism PR and tourism bureau was also stronger. It isn't the most convenient onsen area to get to for a 2 week Golden Triangle speed run and really works better with longer holidays like EU & AU. The setup is fairly first or second time foreign visitor friendly with a ryokan supplied bath chit, a street facing beer keg kiosk, plenty of retail & alcohol shops, and an outdoor cultural show with dancers & music (at least when I was there). My guess is the inns were also bookable online in English or via the Tourism Center "back in the day" before some other ryokan town associations helped their inn owners get onto non-JP booking aggregates & English webpages. Allowing tattoos is probably a huge reason, too.

They've managed to preserve the feel of oshare strolling onsen town with public bathhouses and smaller inns in a pretty good condition. If you like such destination onsen villages, you've probably observed they require significant upkeep & reinvestment. There are other similar strolling onsen towns which haven't kept up to this level which probably has to do with the local inn keepers driving the economic flywheel and working more closely with the local government such as the tourism association, planning divisions to keep certain development groups from capitalizing on a gentrifying area with larger ryokan chains, and even JR/KNT to promote the areas with posters, adding the town to a "model plan", tourism packages, station upkeep/expansion, & etc.

It isn't my favorite kind of onsen town or water but I do admire their business acumen and general upkeep. Also, for other onsen/ryokan lovers who have not been, check the threads and set your expectations accordingly. I visited because it is one of the major towns, like I visited Dogo Onsen Honkan (before the most recent remodel). Not onsen towns I'd revisit on my own due to personal preferences and cost performance evaluations but happy to suggest it to a first or second time foreigner who likes being more social, is willing to get off the triangle track, and is feeling a bit anxious about offending Japanese people with improper manners or faux pax. There's little worry here as many of the people I saw in the baths were also not Japanese ;p Would happily revisit Hyogo, Tottori, and Matsuyama/Ehime.

Interestingly one of the ryokan managers in Ehime said they'd been getting more European visitors during my visit in 2018. His ryokan hired Nepali staff partially to support the foreign visitors https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2...0broker%20said. He mentioned there are hospitality focused Japanese training programs in Nepal. It sounded similar to how cruise lines setup hiring pipelines in certain countries. We had this conversation in English while he drove me back to the train station and ryokan is part of the New Awaji group https://www.newawaji-hotels.com/. He seemed pretty aware of which foreign demographics tended to visit specific areas.

LapLap

This is a chart showing those (larger) countries with the highest % of adults who have at least one tattoo
https://www.statista.com/statistics/...ted-countries/

1 Italy 48%
2 Sweden 47%
3 United States 46%
4 Australia 43%
5 Argentina 43%
6 Spain 42%
7 Denmark 41%
8 United Kingdom 40%
9 Brazil 37%
10 France 36%
11 Germany 36%
12 Greece 35%
13 South Africa 33%
14 Russia 33%
15 Canada 33%
14 Mexico 32%
15 Turkey 30%


If you whittled out the older demographic and narrowed the focus to 18 to 40 year olds, those percentages are going to be higher still.
From that younger subset, focus in further on people who actively aim to go to Japan and it becomes clear that the majority of visitors from that country are inked.

Kinosaki’s innkeeper association (or equivalent) have been extremely astute.

Topcare

By astute you mean not equating a tattoo for yakuza. Because that is the stupidity of people in Japan about tattoos? No? Or we going to go all tatmaei 建前 and give people a pass on the whole tattoo crap.

LapLap

We’ll never get reliable data on how many of the English/Spanish language vloggers and influencers that are guiding itinerary choices are themselves tattooed, but from what I’ve see I think it’s safe to assume that more are than not. Way more.

Kinosaki made an astute choice in collectively agreeing to accept inked patrons at a time when those with tattoos had to pick through sporadic listings with rare exceptions. With the reassurance that all 7 of the town’s core bath houses would accept them, this will have encouraged influencers to make their onsen town “reportage” in Kinosaki. This is in turn encouraged more visitors, some of which made their own vlogs which are now encouraging further visitors.

malloc

So I arrived in Osaka and here you can truly see the record number of visitors in action.
I was in Dotonbori yesterday and I think it must be 80-90% foreigners here based on the faces and shouting in other langues, but I guess this is a "tourist trap".
Quite a 180 considering the other places I went to the past week.

LapLap

Rappungi for the nightlife. Ginza for the shopping. Dotonbori for the “street food”.


ETA - Wikipedia has entries for “street food” in 39 languages. Japanese isn’t one of them.

chokeman

I used to enjoy Roppongi wild nightlife scene in the late 90s early 2000s. It was always busy and very sketchy, but fun if you had the right connections and attitude.

So I was very surprised to see the shift it went through when I visited recently. There are a few big spots here and there, and certainly many more smaller clubs/bars hidden inside the buildings. But the lively street nightlife was completely gone.

bmwe92fan

Roppongi has always been a place for foreigners - COVID really killed all those places - and it hasn’t come back yet…. Don’t get me wrong there is still a late night scene - but nothing like it used to be - or in the bubble economy….

Q Shoe Guy

You could say that about many places. I believe the "nightlife" that survived has returned to Kabukicho , Ikebukuro (Pondbag). The place where I live is busy with tourists from 10:00-19:00 , after that I have no idea where they all go?

evergrn

I went clubbing in Roppongi last month and was surprised to see only 2 Westerners there the entire evening. Was a Friday night but not at all packed. But if you�re middle aged like me and don�t want the wild and crazy, that�s perfect.

Seems like all the Nigerian touts have turned into street patrol. I don�t know if they get paid or they�re volunteering. Not much to patrol because there�s not much going on anymore in Roppongi.

The place that�s become packed with foreigners now is Shinjuku�s Golden Gai.

freecia

Like the neighborhood watch street patrol? So they were once the people you didn't want to make eye contact with lest they take it as an invitation to persuade you to go for (very) overpriced drinks and now they're the people who should deter off... something... harassment or street crime related? Could they be keeping their turf claims (for solicitation, promotion, or otherwise) current?

I'm possibly confused, mulling over the irony, or blinking at the Japan-ness of this. Maybe some combination of all three.

LapLap

Last summer, as part of our preparations to return to London, we were in Shibuya buying omiyage cookies, there was still plenty of daylight. Down, underneath the streets in the Hachiko statue area, we came across the loudest, crassest, most obnoxious North American we’ve ever encountered, completely intoxicated, in shorts with a full set of burn marks on his wooden Fuji San staff. The very personification of Family Guy’s Peter Griffin at his most grotesque.

Perhaps they’ve worked out what Nomihoudai means and are comatose by 7pm.