Japan Has 100 Billion Reasons to Welcome More Tourists

A recent trip to the ski slopes of Niigata brought home the consequences of the 40 million visitors expected in Japan in 2025: The gigantic suitcases blocking my way on the Shinkansen; the overworked staff in Japanese hotels; the buses held up interminably by tourists unaware of how to pay, and unable to ask.

Small inconveniences like these are stacking up in a country that has rapidly become one of the world’s premier tourism destinations. Having lived for nearly 15 years in Shibuya — home to the famed Scramble Crossing where every new arrival is seemingly required by international law to take a picture — I have a keener sense than most of the change tourism has wrought.