Tourism What bothers foreign tourists in Japan most?

Between July and December 2024, the Japan Tourism Agency interviewed 4,189 foreign travellers as they finished their journeys in Japan to determine their problems before they departed from Narita, Haneda, Kansai, Fukuoka, and New Chitose Airports, Japan's largest international air gateways.

Based on the survey, here is a list of issues that bothered or troubled foreign tourists in Japan:

• Scarcity of public trash cans – 21.9% of travellers were inconvenienced by the lack of garbage bins in public areas.
• Language barriers with staff – 15.2% found it challenging to communicate with employees at restaurants, shops, train stations, and hotels who only spoke Japanese.
• Crowded sightseeing attractions and travel facilities – 13.1% were bothered by congestion in train stations and tourist spots.
• Confusion with public transportation – 12.3% experienced problems understanding how to line up for trains or buses, and had difficulty with routes and transfers.
• Poor quality multilingual signage—10.8% of people found non-Japanese text in public places that was small or hard to understand due to subpar translations.
• Immigration processing delays – 8.6% were frustrated by the time it took to get through immigration on arrival.
• Limited access to free Wi-Fi or public internet – 6.1% had trouble finding free internet services.

Despite these issues, 51.1% of travellers reported no complaints, indicating high overall satisfaction.



What bothered you most while travelling in Japan? As a resident, I can certainly relate to the issues caused by the absence of rubbish bins!

I am surprised at confusion with public transportation because of apps like even google maps which can help. For public transport you just need the names so the signage there now seems good enough. Other signs how about google lense? 30 years ago that was a different story.

I agree public free wi-fi is limited, you can get a SIM or a portable hotspot right in the airport though and they are pretty cheap. US people get some data from Verizon, Google Fi and on T-mobile (t-mobile is heavily throttled on free international data but can purchase high speed though it is cheaper to buy a sim in Japan). On crowded they are part of the problem themselves it's like complaining about the traffic when you are part of the traffic but worse as you all have the same destinations. I think what needs to happen is to promote more diverse locations to encourage tourists to spread out. immigration delays is another "traffic" problem, not sure what to do about that. They now require an Evisa for visa waiver countries (kind of like esta in the US).

I do not like pressuring everyone to learn my language, the point of travel is to see different cultures not to have them be like you. These days there are translation apps and google lens that can help. Another article about adjusting ryokan food in Kyoto for westerners makes me very sad but I suppose they want to make money. I want the ryokan food experience but I am not quite like a casual tourist from a western country.

trash cans though oh boy is that annoying, that annoys me.

When you're not used to riding public transportation it can be confusing. Last summer my son tried to go to Disneyland with his friend. They were 17. His friend had never been to Japan and my son hadn't been to Japan since he was 10. My wife told them exactly what to do but he still ended up getting on the wrong bus (at the correct boarding location) and they went to Haneda instead of Disneyland. Now that I think about it we had difficulty when my wife was with us. We went to Motegi (Honda Mobility Resort) and the last leg was a one-car train. We went to the platform but by the time we realized we couldn't use the Suica card and had to get a transfer ticket at the station to get on, we missed the train and had to wait about an hour for the next one. So I guess even though we're very familiar with Japan I'd have marked yes I had difficulty for that question.

Anyway I'm sure the survey was just "did you have any difficulties with such and such." Probably those who said they did had minor inconveniences overall like we did.

The lack of hand drying facilities in public toilets.

Any issues with the transport and signage simply required a little thought, patience and figuring things out; it was actually quite fun and I took buses to rural parts without much hassle at all.

I went to Kumamoto city to visit the grave of the great swordsman, Musashi Miyamoto. I managed to figured out which bus to get on with the help of the bus information lady, but working out the exact stop to alight from the bus was virtually impossible. I tried to ask the driver, in my pigeon Japanese, embarrassed at a bus load of people staring at us, and he sort of nodded and off we went. After 20-30 minutes I was worried he'd forgotten or misunderstood my question and began giving up on the idea of visiting the grave of this famous 'Kensei'. Then, the bus made one of it's scheduled stops, the bus driver undid his seat belt, craned his head and shoulders out of the drivers cab and stared at us and every passenger on the bus turned towards us and stared intently and directly at us, too! There was no doubt that this was the stop we should get off at! We chuckled, got up and bowed deeply to the whole bus and driver as we passed him

Bins, yes. Tourists complaining about over-tourism - ironic, yes. I like the challenge of a language barrier.

My point is the language barrier is not so large these days thanks to apps. Decades ago when many of us first came over we did not have so much English signage, there was no such thing as a smartphone or "apps", I printed out maps or had other paper, I carried a Wordtank Wordtank - Wikipedia which was something Grandpa Frank did not have back in his day so even I had advantages over his generation (no internet either). People these days can use google lens and read things, can use other apps to communicate which I encourage so their inconvenience is low IMHO. A resident I still believe needs to learn Japanese to a certain level or they will still miss out on opportunities IMHO.

I was very lucky that the citizens of Fukuoka had signs everywhere in English & Japanese(1971+72). I think because Hakata military Base had been there a long time and so many Americans & Canadians were stationed there , they made life easier for us. I also lucked out that I met a young Japanese man who became like my brother the first month there. He wanted to learn more English and helped me learn Japanese. I did usually carry a Japanese vocab building book in my back pocket to help out.

The lack of public trash cans is a huge one.

The lack of hand drying facilities & soap in bathrooms is annoying but something you can adapt to by carrying a small hand towel and hand sanitizer with you.

Petaris said:

The lack of public trash cans is a huge one.

The lack of hand drying facilities & soap in bathrooms is annoying but something you can adapt to by carrying a small hand towel and hand sanitizer with you.

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I always carry pants, shorts or a shirt with me to deal with the hand drying problem.

Ukigumo said:

The lack of hand drying facilities in public toilets

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Probably because most Japanese guys only wash their fingertips for 0.5 seconds and walk out

Haruto Uzumaki said:

Probably because most Japanese guys only wash their fingertips for 0.5 seconds and walk out

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Yuck!

Many men around the world, believe they are born with a bactericidal coating on their skin and so washing isn't really necessary. They are, of course, in error.

A while ago, there were various polls going around online asking if men 'actively washed their legs' when in the shower. 'What a strange question', I thought, 'of course we do!' It turned out a significant proportion of men do not actively wash their legs in the shower believing the descending wash of soapy water from their upper body was sufficient to deal with the hygiene of their lower limbs

(There was also a poll result showing (probably European) men think about the Roman Empire at least once a day. This is true)

I was on Koyasan once and in a shop selling all sorts religiously orientated objects. I ask the price of a rather beautiful fan I liked the look of and was met with head shaking and crossed fingers. My guide told me that apparently they were not for sale to anyone who was not a member of a monastery. I bought a similar item from a shop a bit further along…

I walked into a small empty Asakusa izakaya quite late at night, having just arrived in Tokyo for the first time. As I entered, the elderly mama san said in a loud voice and shake of her head, "No [speak] English." I replied with a bow, "Hai, shouchi itashimashita. Nihongo wo sukoshi hanasemasu." But she pointed to the door. I crossed the road to another izakaya this time with quite a few customers who plied me with beers, delicious marinated potatoes (because I was a veggie) and we swapped meishi!

It's kinda interesting, every now and then I still encounter a Japanese person that refuses to recognize I can understand or use Japanese