According to Daily Sabah; Local authorities in Japan have announced that they have canceled the annual cherry blossom festival in one of the coury’s most popular tourist areas due to the damaging effects of an overcrowding of tourists and deprivation of comfort for local resides. The unprecedeed decision follows increasing reports of anomalous behavior by foreign travelers, including trespassing io the privacy of homes and the inability of city infrastructure to manage crowds.
The mayor of this region emphasized that the curre priority is to protect the lives of citizens, and stated that the daily presence of thousands of tourists in this small city has caused serious health and security problems; So that some resides have complained about the accumulation of garbage in the roads and even tourists eering private gardens to take pictures or use the toilet. The area, which is world famous on social media for its simultaneous view of Mt.Fuji and a historic temple, hosted 200,000 visitors last year, but now local officials say the grim reality behind the beautiful images has paralyzed people’s daily lives.
The cancellation of this ten-year eve is the latest action in the chain of Japan’s sharp reactions to the unprecedeed wave of tourism, which has been launched due to the devaluation of the coury’s national currency and the number of foreign visitors reaching the limit of 43 million people per year. Previously, in other parts of Japan, measures such as erecting high fences to block photographers’ view of natural landscapes and fines for eering historic alleys in cities such as Kyoto were implemeed. Despite the official cancellation of the festival, the city administration has announced that it will deploy security forces and mobile health equipme to corol travelers who are likely to still visit the area in the spring to preve further tensions.
