We stop by to see how the city, its merchants, and its deer are doing.
With the Chinese government issuing a travel advisory telling citizens to refrain from leisure travel to Japan, Japan is facing the potential loss of its largest source of inbound international tourism. The possible effect looms especially large for Japan’s most popular attractions among foreign travelers, and after checking in to see how things are going in Tokyo’s Sensoji neighborhood and a number of districts in Kyoto, our next stop was Nara.
Though it’s a historically significant city, Nara’s global fame doesn’t match that of Tokyo or Kyoto, and its local hotel industry isn’t nearly as big either. However, it’s just an hour by train to Nara from either Kyoto or Osaka, and it’s an incredibly popular daytrip destination largely thanks to Nara Park and its herds of deer that wander freely around its grounds and mingle with the human visitors. So naturally our Japanese-language reporter Haruka Takagi made Nara Park her first point of inspection after arriving in Nara, getting there at about 11 a.m. …
…at which time there were already very big tourist crowds. Haruka estimates at least 80 percent of them were foreign tourists, with a fairly even split between Western and Asian countries of origin. Her ear isn’t quite trained enough to distinguish between different Chinese dialects, but she did hear the language being spoken, but once again with a fairly even ratio to English and European languages.
The largest cluster of people was gathered around the south gate of Todaiji Temple, where there are several souvenir shops along the street that leads to the grounds of the temple that houses Nara’s Daibutsu/Great Buddha statue.
Looking at the two above photos, you might think that Nara Park is packed from end to end with tourists, but that’s not the case. The park is incredibly spacious, and if you keep moving past its major tourist attractions you can easily get to parts of the park that are tranquil and practically secluded-feeling to stroll about or sit and sip a bottle of tea in. Before long, Haruka found herself in a section where it was just her and the deer.
Eventually strolling back closer to town, Haruka happened upon a parking lot for tour buses, and she decided to ask the security guard on duty if things have been different since the Chinese government’s travel advisory, to which he replied:
“We’re still getting lots of overseas tourists, but there are significantly less from China these days. Fewer tour buses are showing up too. I’m sure the travel advisory is having an effect, but I’ve heard the isn’t so hot in China these days either.”
Haruka mentioned that she still seemed to be hearing a lot of Chinese being spoken among the travelers, but the security guard informed her that Nara also gets a lot of tourists from Taiwan, and so at least some of the chatter she’d overheard was probably from them.
Later, as Haruka stopped to buy some of the special crackers to feed to the deer, she the vendor the same questions about whether or not they’d been having fewer customers from China, and whether that was impacting them. “I think Nara is still getting a lot of travelers from China right now, because they’d have to pay fees to cancel their reservations. But really, recently we’ve been having a lot of visitors from Korea. So for our shop, the Chinese government’s travel advisory isn’t really affecting us much right now.”
In the park and its vicinity, Haruka also spotted a number of Japanese teens in uniform on their school trips, and some of the souvenir shop merchants told her that they even stay open later into the evenings when there’re large groups of them in town and looking for gifts to take home to their families.
On Nara’s town streets, the crowds were thick in front of Nakatanido, a mochi shop that got international buzz when videos of the high speed hammering of its mochi makers vent viral a while back…
…and there was also a huge line to get into Shizuka, a famous restaurant that specializes in kamameshi (rice and other ingredients cooked together in the same pot) that’s been in business for 60 years.
▼ There were both Japanese and foreign customers waiting to get in when Haruka sauntered by.
Down other streets, though, ones without places that have gotten such intense buzz on YouTube or among foodie blogs, things were much less crowded, with one cafe owner saying they have more overseas tourist customers during the week, and more Japanese customers on the weekend.
And again, even though there are still a lot of tourists in Nara Park, the wide footpaths make it easy to move around and enjoy yourself without feeling hurried or jostled. Haruka does caution visitors to still watch where they’re going, however, because while there’s enough space for everyone to keep walking a brisk pace, the park’s deer will sometimes decide that they want to sit right in the middle of a walkway, which can cause a bit of bottlenecking as pedestrians stop to snap pictures and move around them.
As the deer cracker vendor told Haruka, we might not actually be seeing the full effects of the Chinese government’s travel advisory just yet. Seeing as how it came down so suddenly, many people had probably already booked hotels and tour packages that were past their refundable dates, and it’s possible that there’s a ripple effect on the way of people who would otherwise have been making their bookings now to come to Japan in a few months’ time are now choosing not to, which would mean bigger dips in tourism numbers coming in the winter and spring. For right now, though, Nara, and its deer, are doing OK.
Photos ©SoraNews24
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