Paper Title
The Challenges of Managing Overtourism
Abstract
This paper aims to discuss some of the challenges of managing overtourism in Japan and how it can be solved by providing solutions that are practical and sustainable for the tourists’ destinations, and the products and services provided to national and international tourists. Communities, local governments, businesses in the tourism industry need to organize themselves to be able to solve the problems in an efficient manner. Researched conducted in Kanagawa Prefecture in the Kanto Area of Japan, showed that a high percentage of international tourists visiting the same tourists’ destinations: Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. Meanwhile,taking into consideration the sustainable development tourism framework, increasing the number of international tourists’ visits to already overcrowded tourists’ destinations will compromise the human and environmental carrying capacity of historical and natural attractions in these destinations. The local Japanese government, communities, and businesses need to create initiates and marketing strategies to attract international tourists and help to diversify their travel itinerary, and at the same time will contribute to the sustainable development of tourism in Japanese destinations by creating, diversifying and generating demand to new tourists’ destinations in the market.
Keywords - International, Tourists, Destinations, Japan, Overtourism, Marketing, Carrying, Capacity.