From April onwards, tourists will no longer be able to visit the Gion neighborhood, where the tea houses where the famous geishas work are located, reports ‘The Associated Press’ (AP). A decision taken due to excessive tourism in the area and also to protect these women from tourists who harass them.
Geishas are professional entertainers trained to entertain clients through various traditional arts, including dance and music. They are an iconic part of Japanese culture, recognizable by their kimonos, white painted faces and elaborate hairstyles.
Entry to the restaurants and tea houses where these artists perform will be limited to geishas, customers and residents of the neighborhood, according to the newspaper ‘South China Morning Post’. Only the neighborhood’s main street, Hanamikoji, will remain open to tourists.
The neighborhood “is not a theme park”, argued Isokazu Ota, a council employee, cited by AP. Signs will be placed warning tourists that they cannot walk on “private streets” and that there will be a fine of 10,000 yen (about 62 euros) in case of transgression. “We don’t want to do this, but we are desperate,” he said.
The neighborhood is often visited by tourists who behave uncomfortable, ignoring signs asking them to keep their distance or not try to touch women’s kimonos. There are also complaints of tourists trespassing on private property.
Many visitors wait on the streets for long periods of time, hoping to see a geisha to take photographs of them, although this has been prohibited since 2019. “They put up signs a few years ago saying that photographing geishas was prohibited, but there is no legal and everyone ignores them”, says Peter Macintosh, a Canadian author living in the city since 1993 and an expert on this Japanese tradition, quoted by the ‘South China Morning Post’.
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“Overtourism isn’t just about big crowds, it’s about a lack of cultural awareness, which is a big part of the problem here,” explains James Mundy, a travel agent, quoted by ‘The Telegraph’ . Some tourists interested in taking a photo of a geisha have a “lack of understanding around the culture and etiquette”.
The restrictions applied in Kyoto are not unique, other places in Japan have also applied limitations to tourism. Anyone who wants to climb Mount Fuji, for example, will have to pay 2,000 yen (approximately 12 euros). The fee was applied due to the fact that visitors leave rubbish on the mountain, in addition to the fact that congestion of people can cause accidents. The number of daily tourists will also be limited from June, according to the newspaper ‘The Guardian’.
Since the end of pandemic restrictions and also due to the weakening of the currency, the yen, tourism in Japan has grown. In January this year, the number of foreign tourists in Japan increased by almost 80%, which corresponds to around 2.69 million visitors, the same level recorded in the same month of 2019. It is expected that the number of tourists, in 2024, surpass the record of 31.88 million registered in 2019, according to the news agency ‘Reuters’.
