Kyoto Wants You Back, but It Has Some Polite Suggestions

At the beginning of the pandemic, “people in the city were saying, ‘We’ve returned to the old Kyoto, isn’t that great?’” said Toshinori Tsuchihashi, the director of the city’s tourism department.

But, as the economic damage mounted, residents “have come to recognize tourism’s importance.”

Many businesses have yet to recover. Before the pandemic, it was nearly impossible to get a reservation at one of the many restaurants lining Pontocho, an atmospheric alleyway running parallel to the Kamo River in Kyoto’s city center. But on a recent weekend night, “for lease” signs hung in darkened shop windows, and many of the terraces looking out on the water sat unused.

Hotel The Mitsui Kyoto, a luxury Western-style hotel, opened in late 2020 and has operated well below capacity for most of the pandemic, according to Manabu Kusui, the general manager.

As tourists begin returning to Kyoto, the hotel hopes to differentiate itself by providing guests with exclusive experiences it has negotiated with some of Kyoto’s beautiful but less trafficked destinations. One of the first is a private tour of Nijo Castle, the residence of Japan’s first shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu, conveniently located next to the hotel.

It’s a style of tourism the city is trying to promote as part of its new strategic plan to address prepandemic crowding.

But Mr. Kusui knows that people come to Kyoto with a certain itinerary in mind, and “we can’t tell them not to go to some place like Kiyomizu Temple,” he said, referring to the famous Buddhist temple perched on a mountain face on Kyoto’s east side.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/25/travel/kyoto-japan-tourism.html