A New Way to Discover Japan

How to Reach the Parts that Others Don't

More and more people are choosing Japan as a holiday destination. I’ll bet someone you know has either been recently or is talking about going.

The problem with that, as many a Kyoto resident will tell you, is over-tourism to certain hotspots. My guests today are setting out to do something about it, connecting tourists who want to leave the beaten path with Japanese residents who would welcome the life and income that they bring.

As always, you can listen as a podcast if you’d like and there’s a transcription below in case you’d like to skip to a particular part of the conversation.

Japan’s encouragement of tourism is supposed to be part of the solution to its economic woes and shrinking population. Next week’s post will look at why its population is shrinking so rapidly - and whether anything can be done.

Transcript

Chris

Fanny Cornu and Anna Johnson are the co-founders of Sugimichi, a company dedicated to helping people visiting Japan to see the place in a fresh way. We talked about Japan's tourist boom, whether it might be a problem for some people, and what their company is setting out to achieve.

Anna (00:24)

Anecdotally, it feels like everybody I know is wanting to go to Japan or has been or has plans to go. And I see it everywhere on social media. In 2024, they had 37 million international visitors, which is a record high. And that's about a 50 % increase from 2023. So it's also rising really steeply and about 15 % increase compared to 2019, so pre-COVID. So it's definitely like, know, exploding.

Next year or this year, I should say in 2025, it's expected that the total sort of spending from tourists in Japan is going to exceed around 10 trillion yen, which is about 50 billion pounds. So it's huge.

Fanny (01:05)

The Japanese government aims to attract like 60 million tourists by 2030, which is almost double what's already here this year.

Chris (01:14)

Which makes me wonder, mean, it's obviously worth, as you say a lot to the Japanese economy, and then the government's got this enormous ambition. But when you two are in Japan speaking with friends, the people you're working with now in your company, how is that sort massive influx of tourists going down with people there in your experience?

Anna (01:32)

I think it's maybe worth saying that most of these tourists are going to the same places. think it was, look at overnight stays, tourists doing overnight stays in Japan, I think three quarters of them are in the same five cities, which is, as you would imagine, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hokkaido, Fukuoka. So they're all sort of bunching in the same places. So I think if you're not in a big city, you're not going to feel it as much. And then the friends I do have who are in big cities, I think it's...

The opinion varies. Some people are like transport is a nightmare. When we get the metro, it's really crowded. Some people are like, well, it's a big city. You sort of expect there to be a lot of people there and a lot of tourists.

Fanny (02:13)

Yeah, I recently spent a month between Kyoto and Tokyo and I have friends in both cities and the approach is completely different because obviously if you have a huge amount of tourists in Tokyo, the city is so big that your everyday life might not really be impacted by tourism. As for Kyoto, it's the exact opposite where you can see that there are tourists everywhere, most restaurants, and it's not just a couple of streets or, you know, temples that are… and I know that my friends in Kyoto are getting a bit tired of the influence of tourism in Kyoto.

Chris (02:50)

These stories anecdotally and in the news are about not just the sheer numbers, but also the kind of behavior of some, I mean, I'm sure it's a small minority who sort of make the general reputation of foreigners in Kyoto go down and down. But do you hear anything about that, Fanny, from your friends in the city?

Fanny (03:08)

Yeah, I think there's still quite some appreciation for tourists when they go to Japan, they're interested in the culture. Very few tourists go to Japan just to tick the bucket list. So I think there's an appreciation for tourism in Japan where people are being respectful and trying their best. And I think for Japanese people, it's really important that tourists always try their best. But obviously, when you see people, you know, trash on the street or all those things, it's just so extreme for Japanese people that... they will remember that.

Chris (03:39)

And then your company, which is in the early months, I think, right, of setting up, tell us what it is, what's the big idea and how does it kind of grow out of what we've just been talking about.

Anna (03:50)

So Fanny and I, we did some traveling together. And as we were traveling through these sort of towns and villages across Shikoku and Kyushu, we were talking about the fact that so many people and lots of people we know tend to hit the same places, you know, those big cities that I talked about. ⁓ And they all seem to be going to the tourist attractions that they've seen on Instagram. I think this is not a Japan-specific problem, but we're starting to see Instagram just funnel people towards specific places. It's sort of like a big, you know, hype train, I guess you could say, where something goes viral or gets attention on Instagram, suddenly everybody converges there and then they leave because then the next big thing is coming up. So we're sort of discussing that phenomenon and talking about the experiences we've had in Japan have been so personal and unforgettable and didn't really have much to do with Instagram. It was more about just exploring and trying to understand. And so we were thinking about how can we share that because we both get asked for recommendations all the time.

And then we were thinking, okay, what would a new sort of travel look like? One that wasn't sort of just about hype or, you know, funneling people into these tourist spots. You how could we make it a bit more, yeah, personal and more about exploring and exploring a different culture. And that's where we came up with the idea for the company, which is that we wanted to do travel a bit differently and help people really find their own connection and their own path in Japan.

Chris (05:13)

What does that look like in practice for the two of you? Setting up, you know, choosing which towns or villages you're working with, who you're working with in these places. How's it been done?

Fanny (05:22)

The unique thing about our travel agency is that we take a client as an individual so we don't sell packages. someone for example, who's interested in crafts or art, will try to direct them towards the things that they are interested in. because we I think we know Japan quite well at this point, we're able to locate places that could work for this person. ⁓

Chris (05:48)

It would be interesting to perhaps home in on one particular town or village that you know well that you're really working with, just as an example.

Anna (05:56)

I'm thinking Teshima. Teshima is very personal for me because I spent a month there. So to give you some context, it's a small island in the Sato Inland Sea. So it's sort of between Shikoku and Honshu, so the main island and Shikoku. Of course, it was affected by this sort of bleed of people out of the more rural places.

It has an aging population, its economy is mostly sort of farming and agriculture. And then it was also affected by a big trash incident where a lot of trash washed up on the beach and there was a big lawsuit. the island was really despairing and thinking, okay, what's going to happen here? And then this Japanese, I don't know if he's a millionaire or a billionaire, but he's a super wealthy guy. He runs a corporation called the Benesse Corporation. He was thinking, I think he went to these islands as a tourist. He went on a boat and he had a look around. And he was also quite sort of emotionally impacted by what he was seeing and how it was such a shame that people were leaving these places because they're so beautiful and they have so much history and culture. And he decided to conduct, it wasn't really an experiment, but he decided, I'm going to create these three incredible modern art museums on three of these small islands.

And he worked with leading architects and really famous artists to create these big art installations, big art experiences on the islands in the hope that the tourism would be a pull and you could sort of inject that local economy and try and pull more people back in. And it was an incredible success. And actually there's a chain of three islands which have the museums on them. Teshima is one of them. And that's also how I found out about it. was working in a cafe, working in a guest house there for a month, you know, of course, if you're there for a month, was meeting everybody. I was seeing these really small groups of tourists come. They got dropped off by the ferry every day and they would wander around looking very confused and lost. And then they would have to get the last ferry out. And I would talk to the people that lived there and say, what do you think about this? And actually a lot of them had been drawn back to the island because now that there was an opportunity to make some money and do a guest house, say, or a cafe, the prospects for living there were just a bit easier. One of the people I was working with, worked as a journalist covering Shikoku. So she would cover all of these really amazing experiences and craftsmen and places to stay for the local Japanese tourism. And we would absolutely be working with her when we're bringing people into Teshima or the other islands or trying to get them to sort of explore these places that I think you just wouldn't find out about if you didn't speak Japanese or you didn't, I guess, have someone telling you.

Chris (08:32)

And these places, because you mentioned there are Japanese tourists going there already and it's obviously more accessible for them because of the language, et cetera. In a place like Teshima then, are you sort of facilitating something which would be really lovely actually, which is have Japanese tourists who are going there with overseas tourists actually meeting and mingling maybe a little bit more than they might otherwise potentially.

Anna (08:53)

Yeah, I mean, I would love it if that happened. In the future, if we could do that, kind of facilitate that kind of cultural exchange. think creating that bridge to overseas is also really important for Japan. We know the local ⁓ guest houses so we can facilitate that. We also know the local restaurants. And so ⁓ it's great to have that connection because it can provide you with that really amazing personal experience. And then also just understanding how things work in Teshima. So if you want to see the museum, you know, how does that actually work if you're going to get the ferry there? Because when I was there, the ferry to Teshima was written in all the Japanese. I think that caused a bit of confusion. Yeah, so I think it's just about having been there and knowing people who can, for example, offer up a home cooked meal course where they teach you how to make Japanese food.

Fanny (09:43)

As Anna said, know, if the signs are all in Japanese, we'll tell them like, okay, this is the sign you should be looking for. You know, this is where you buy the ticket. The last ferry leaves at like 2.50. It's all this little information that make traveling much easier when you're not very confident. A lot of people are scared about going to Japan because they're, I can't read. So we're just trying to make things a bit easy for them. But also we only provide suggestions. We're not forcing them to visit any museum. We're just... we use Google My Maps and we leave them pens where things could be interested for them. And then it's their choice to go there or not.

Chris (10:18)

And when you deal with people like say the owner of the guest house who you know very well, what are their sort of hopes or expectations? Is it the case in a place like Teshima that it gets a certain amount of incoming Japanese tourism, but they often have empty rooms or they have people they know who would actually quite welcome a modest influx that the two of you can bring?

Anna (10:39)

I think in Teshima's case, it's getting more more popular. So I don't think they need our help with filling rooms. I think, yeah, I think definitely with other places or even, you know, specific places in Teshima who are maybe just starting out or just trying to expand. think having that relationship with someone who's sort of creating these itineraries and trying to encourage people to visit your, you know, your island and your place. I think that's really important because you also feel supported from our side, I would hope.

Chris (11:07)

I suppose that that leads me onto this bigger picture where, know, everyone will know in Japan, there are these ghost villages, ghost towns where, you were kind of hinting earlier on, know the younger generation have been moving out for decades and decades and decades. And you've got a lot of abandoned properties, few, you know, you see on YouTube a few foreigners heading in and doing them up if they can't afford property back in the States or Australia, wherever it might be. So there's a little bit of that happening. What do you see, maybe this is a long-term aim rather than right now, what do you see the role of your company potentially in helping to address that, which is quite a big problem for Japan.

Fanny (11:44)

I think it is a long-term goal but I also because a lot of foreigners are moving to Japan and renovating houses and I think it is also a goal of ours to renovate a house and maybe have a little guest house or something and artist residents. I don't think Japanese people mind if foreigners live somewhere and bring tourism because, well, one really interesting thing, Anna and I worked in a small cafe. It's not an abandoned town at all, but it's an aging town, as most of them are. And the cafe was run by an Australian guy and his Japanese wife. ⁓ And we had guest rooms as well, and we had as many foreigners as Japanese tourists.

Chris (12:24)

Are there a top three either locations or particular experiences particular sorts of things that you might be able to hook people up with?

Anna (12:33)

I can talk a bit about Okinawa because I spent four months in Okinawa and I had such an incredible time exploring the islands around Okinawa because they still have incredibly rich culture that's been preserved which is so so interesting and amazing to go and and slightly touch the surface of. So for example there's an island called Iriomote which is you have to take a plane from Okinawa to Ishigaki which is the island and then you take a ferry from Ishigaki to Iriomote.

And on this island, they still have this tradition of sort of spiritual priestesses who conduct these rituals for the safety and the well-being of the island. And so I think just walking around Iriomote, and there's a guy just while on the island, there's a single foreigner who lives there called Karola. And she offers these sort of cultural tours where she takes you around the island for an afternoon and sort of points things out and explains it. That was really incredible for me because it was just super interesting to learn about it and then to see it.

Fanny (13:29)

I absolutely adore Aizu in Fukushima prefecture. And I think Aizu unfortunately suffers from both the consequences of the end of the civil war in 1869, which I know is a very long time ago. But for a very long time, Aizu is kind of like treated as a backward place. So you know, there's nothing to do in Aizu, the people are treated, so all of this.

Chris (13:52)

Before you go on, because the history bit is so interesting there, suffering the consequences of the Civil War for people who might not know that moment in Japanese history too well. Why does Aizu suffer consequences?

Fanny (14:02)

The Shinsengumi was an armed group in the 1860s that were fighting for the shogunates in Kyoto. were basically like the police trying to protect the streets of Kyoto where there were a lot of like samurais who were against the government at the time. The boss of the Shinsengumi, the one who created them, was the Lord of Aizu. And when the civil war happened, it was mostly a coalition of imperialists who wanted to put the emperor back on the throne. Well, he was always on the throne as an emperor, but this time they wanted him as a head of state and replaced the Tokugawa shogunate. But Aizu was one of those domains that were very, very loyal to the Tokugawa, so they fought against the imperialists and they lost. you know, the rest is history. So for many, many years, even close to a century, a lot of people had a bad impression of Aizu as, maybe against Imperial expansion or all of this. They were always blamed for all sorts of things. It has a very beautiful history and they're very, very proud of their history and they're proud of, you know, having tried to defend the Tokugawa Shogunate and they lost. My first solo trip to Japan, I followed the battles of that civil war from Kyoto to Hokkaido. And I ended up in Aizu and being like, wow, this is incredible. Like everything is beautiful and it has been preserved. There's a lot of temples and things that can be visited. And last winter, my mom was in Japan and my mom's a Buddhist. So she was like, Oh, I really want to, you know, with Aizu, is there a pilgrimage or something that we can, you know, we can explore. And I realized that Aizu has a pilgrimage of the 33 Kannons. So it's like 33 temples dedicated to Kannon that are spread out across the, not just the town, but a bit outside as well.

And yeah, we did that. Most of them are absolutely like beautiful and they're still in the center of town. Some of them are centuries old and I don't think it's seen a soul in probably 200 years. People are really, really friendly. They don't really see tourists. I remember I went to restaurant and people are like, you must be the new English teacher around, right? No, I'm just, I'm just traveling. And they were like, you come here? That's great.

Chris (16:15)

Ha ha! Listen, just as a final question for the both of you, where do you see this going?

Fanny (16:26)

I think we both want to stay really, really small because we enjoy working together and we enjoy what we do and we want to keep doing it. So we don't want to have, you know, employees and we'd love to collaborate with more people maybe in the future, but I think we really want to keep it personal. Yeah.

Anna (16:43)

I think exactly what Fanny said and the collaboration is what we really hope is going to sort of grow over the next five years. So if we can collaborate with the tourist boards in Japan or in other organizations, that would be fantastic.

Fanny (16:56)

We're trying to privilege maybe traveling by foot and traveling by public transport, which is extremely easy in Japan. Coming from Switzerland, we also have an extremely good train network. So I'm used to this. I know a lot of tourists are not. We had like American friends the other day who went to Japan and they were like, I've never taken a train for this long before. And it wasn't that long, it was about an hour.

So yeah, think trying to encourage people to, you know, explore slowly as Anna said, and take the time and if they're able, because we're trying to, you know, encourage everyone to visit Japan at their own pace. But I think if you can, and if you're willing to hike around and, you know, discover nature, you'll have a bigger appreciation for sustainability as well.

Chris (17:42)

So the last thing for you both quickly is on a very practical note, how can people find you online? How can they start working with you?

Anna (17:49)

You can find it on our website. So it's www.sugimichi-travels.com. And they can also head to our Instagram, which is at Sugimichi Travels. We have these six sort of like template journeys, just to give you a taste of what kind of things you could be doing and to maybe spark some inspiration. So take a look through those. We have a journey match for that they can fill out, which is where you tell us your preferences and what you're interested in. Yeah. And then we'll be in touch. ⁓

Fanny (18:17)

We want to work with all sorts of budgets. We don't, you know, have a starting point budget wise. I think we'll really try to adapt. The more time we have, the less expensive things can be.

Chris (18:28)

Well, good luck with the venture. It sounds fantastic. Thank you very much for coming on.