Tourism numbers are sky-high in Japan. The country saw record numbers of travelers throughout 2024, and government officials are hoping to see the numbers double by 2030. But workers are in short supply. So, to adapt to the tourism boom, Japan is turning to everything from robot hotel receptionists to contactless restaurants. The post As Japan’s economy adapts to a tourism boom, so does daily life appeared first on The World from PRX.
When I stepped into Tokyo’s Henn Na Hotel, I encountered life-size, animatronic hotel workers who greeted me in Japanese and English.
They looked human, and were even dressed in festive holiday hats and attire. The robots guided me through the check-in process, leading me through a series of prompts: What is your last name? What language do you speak? Can you scan your passport?
It was a fun novelty at first, but I couldn’t help but think the transaction would’ve been easier — and faster — if I had been dealing with a live person. I guess I also like the quick exchanges with people that we so often take for granted.
This was just one in a series of nonhuman encounters I had in the city, including with a robot on wheels with a digital cat face that delivered appetizers to my table at a nearby cafe, and an automated ordering and checkout system where I swiped a screen to select my food and make my payment.
It felt like half the restaurants I walked into had them. And it wasn’t just fast food like in the US, but nicer, sit-down restaurants where the screen to order and pay could be found right at the table.
These robots and screens aren’t meant to be a gimmick, or to show off the country’s tech niche. Rather, they’re a symptom of Japan’s unique economic situation. The country is facing a declining birth rate and an aging population, with the latest government figures showing that people 65 years or older account for nearly 30% of Japan’s population. To fill the consumption gap, the country is working to lure in tourists. And with fewer workers, the country is turning to more automated systems for backup.
“Japanese society, in the long term, is shrinking,” said Masamichi Ishikura, a deputy director at the Japan Tourism Agency. “So, we need to bring in more tourism to revitalize the local economies.”
To do so, the country is partnering with content creators on social media platforms like TikTok, with videos about experiences you can only get in Japan. And the push is working.
In 2019, before the pandemic, Japan set its record of roughly 32 million visitors, a quarter of the country’s population — a record that was broken in 2024, with 37 million.
April Tucker and M.K. Tucker, a mother and daughter from the Atlanta area, were a part of that. I saw them staring at a map in the heart of Shinjuku, Tokyo’s busiest area, which they said they found a bit intimidating, with hordes of tourists and residents flooding every street corner, crosswalk and train.
“It can be a little difficult, especially with a lot of people,” M.K. Tucker said. “I feel like it’s super crowded. That makes it super hard.”
Her mother agreed. “Everybody’s just moving, moving fast,” April Tucker said. “You’ve just got to get in where you fit in.”
But not every tourist does fit in. According to the tourism agency, there are cultural differences that can be confusing for visitors, such as how to use traditional Japanese toilets, dispose of trash when there aren’t public waste bins and navigate the city’s complex web of public transit.
“Here in Tokyo, there are just so many train lines, so many different bus lines,” said Noah Oskow, who leads tours for Unseen Japan, an English-language publication on Japanese culture and history.
According to Jay Allen, the founder of Unseen Japan, that lack of familiarity with transit — and how to act on transit — can lead to problems for tourists and locals. Unlike in the US, Japanese trains are quiet, and passengers tend not to chat with one another.
“My countrymen, Americans, we tend to be fairly loud,” Allen said. “And they just don’t naturally think about that when they get on a Japanese train.”
It’s not just trains where the culture clash can be challenging, Allen said, with instances of tourists turning visits to ancient shrines into Instagram photoshoots, even posing for pictures doing pull-ups on gates to sacred grounds.
In the Golden Gai district — a series of extremely narrow alleyways filled with some 200 old, shanty-style bars and noodle shops — signs say that photography is prohibited. The shops have just four or five seats each, and they are usually filled with Japanese regulars. Some charge tourists a cover charge.
It’s there that I popped into a whiskey bar and met the owner, Maro-San, who poured me a glass of Japanese whiskey as soul music blasted in the background. We attempted to speak to each other, I, mostly in English with some broken Japanese, and he, mostly in Japanese with some broken English. He told me that the bar had seen a 400% increase in tourists over the past year.
The next morning at my hotel, I went back to the front desk to check out. This time, there was also a long line of tourists who were having trouble navigating the automated check-in and check-out system.
“I’m calling the hotel staff,” the robots announced as human back-up arrived from a door behind the counter.
Considering that Japanese officials are hoping to increase the number of tourists to 60 million by 2030, I couldn’t help but wonder about the headaches that could arise from so much traffic. I longed for the human company that places like Golden Gai bar afforded — oh, and the glass of whiskey, too.
The post As Japan’s economy adapts to a tourism boom, so does daily life appeared first on The World from PRX.
