“More than 55 million tourists visit Kyoto annually,†said Mayo Mieno, a Kyoto city government official. The increase in foreign visitors has been so steep in recent years that Japanese travelers have started complaining of being unable to find places to stay, she said.
There are many foreign visitors in group tours who have no other choice but to stay as far away as in Mie or Okayama prefectures, when visiting the ancient capital of Japan, according to Mieno.
Major hotels in Kyoto are almost fully booked with occupancy rates standing at around 90 percent all year round. The rates for Japanese-style inns in Kyoto, meanwhile, are about 70 percent, nearly twice as high as the national average.
The shortage of accommodation is a common problem for popular Japanese tourist destinations on the so-called “Golden Route†linking Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka.
The Japanese government targets 40 million visitors from abroad in 2020, the year of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, and 60 million in 2030. It also hopes the foreign visitors will spend 8 trillion yen ($70 billion) in 2020 and 15 trillion yen in 2030.
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