Local residents’ complaints about bad-mannered tourists prompt pledges from mayor to consider tighten regulations.
When travelling in Japan and looking for a place to stay, it used to be that you basically had two choices, a hotel or a ryokan (traditional Japanese inn). In recent years, though, Airbnb-style short-term rentals, in which gusts stay in a rented home, apartment, or condo, have been popping up in many places.
Make that too many places, in the minds of some upset residents, including a large number in Kyoto. By the most recent count, taken in December, the city has 1,088 registered short-term rentals, but it’s also seeing an increase in complaints about guests’ lack of common courtesy, with 264 complaints filed between last April and December regarding excessive noise, improper trash disposal/littering, and other nuisances and breaches of etiquette in what were originally designed to be residential spaces.
In response to calls from locals to do something, Kyoto mayor Koji Matsui, speaking at his regularly scheduled press conference last Thursday, said that the city is planning to tighten regulations regarding short term-rentals. Starting this month, short-term rental owners will be required to submit regular reports on their occupancy numbers, with penalties such as forced shutdowns for non-compliance. An expert panel is also being put together to explore putting additional restrictions on the geographic areas in which short-term rentals can be operated, as well as their days of operation and guest stay lengths.
The most dramatic move the Kyoto is making, though, concerns inspections. In order to limit their impact on neighboring residents, short-term rentals are often required to comply with an upper maximum on the number of days during the month or year in which they can have guests staying in them. In addition, regulations may also require that guests stay a certain number of days, to avoid the excess commotion and lack of accountability that can result in a new group of travelers coming in every night and being gone by the next afternoon, and there’s also a limit on the number of guests that can occupy the rental at any one time.
Unfortunately, the no-employees-on-site nature of short-term rentals makes it easy for guests and/or operators to ignore the rules, and so from April the Kyoto City government says it plans to begin conducting unannounced surprise inspections of short-term rentals during early-morning and late-night hours. It’s unclear if these would involve officials actually entering the properties, or would be conducted via a knock on the door and a conversation in the entryway, but either way the intent is for the inspections to take place at a time when the full group of guests is most likely to be inside the rental.
Kyoto’s intent to tighten the rules follows Osaka’s decision in October to suspend applications for new short-term rentals, which came about for the same reasons: complaints from local residents about and short-term rental guests being loud, littering, or otherwise invasively disruptive.
Short-term rentals are particularly popular with inbound international travelers to Japan, and the situation highlights one of the primary sources of overtourism friction that Japan is dealing with these days. Unlike previous generations of foreign tourists whose itineraries were more focused on places that expressly cater to sightseers. the current waves of visitors are staying, dining, and shopping in places where ordinary residents are just trying to go about their regular daily life. Tourist-inflated crowds and longer lines at the nearby ramen joint might the sort of thing residents have no choice but to shrug their shoulders and say “Can’t be helped” over. When the house or apartment next door suddenly turns into an unmanaged hotel, though, people are going to start complaining, especially with how little distance there is between neighbors in Japan’s major cities, and so Kyoto and Osaka probably won’t be the last ones to tighten the reins on short-term rentals.
Source: Nitele News, Yomiuri Shimbun
Top image: Pakutaso
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