The view is postcard-perfect, with snow-capped Mount Fuji forming the backdrop to the five-story pagoda, while cherry blossoms paint the landscape pink. Yet, starting this spring, this scenario will no longer be accessible during the traditional hanami festival. The Arakurayama Sengen park, in the city of Fujiyoshida (Yamanashi prefecture), had to surrender in the face of a phenomenon that is putting many Japanese tourist destinations to the test: uncontrolled mass tourism.
An inevitable cancellation
The municipal administration made the decision official on February 3: the 2026 cherry blossom festival will not be held. A painful but necessary choice, motivated by the impossibility of managing the enormous influx of visitors that in recent years has literally overwhelmed this small community at the foot of Fuji.
During the two weeks of April in which the cherry trees reach maximum bloom, the park recorded attendances of over 200,000, with peaks of over 10,000 people per day. To get up to the viewing platform, tourists had to endure queues of one to three hours, turning what should be a contemplative experience into a true test of endurance.
When hospitality becomes an unbearable burden
The festival was born in 2016 with the aim of enhancing the territory and increasing the tourist flow. Objective achieved, perhaps too much so. The pandemic paradoxically accelerated the phenomenon: once the health emergency was over, tourist demand exploded uncontrollably.
The consequences for residents went far beyond simple inconvenience. Traffic congestion paralyzed the neighborhood’s streets, in some cases forcing schoolchildren off sidewalks overrun by visitors. Cigarette butts littered the streets, while even more serious incidents led some tourists to open the gates of private homes in search of a bathroom or, even worse, to use the gardens as toilets.
Behaviors that pushed citizens to formally ask the administration to intervene, transforming what was a source of pride for the community into a source of daily stress.
The search for a new balance
Mayor Shigeru Horiuchi did not mince words in commenting on the situation: “I feel a strong sense of crisis in seeing that, behind a magnificent scenery, the tranquility of citizens is threatened. In the future, we will establish an adequate system to create an environment in which the lives of residents and tourism can coexist.”
However, the cancellation of the festival does not mean that the park will remain deserted. The administration knows well that tourists will arrive anyway, attracted by the beauty of the place. For this reason, from 1st to 17th April, safety measures will still be in place: guards to regulate traffic and temporary toilets to avoid the repetition of the most unpleasant episodes.
A clear appeal was addressed to visitors: respect the elementary rules of civility, avoid entering residential areas and refrain from photographing private properties without permission. Requests which, in a country with a strong tradition of mutual respect like Japan, sound like an alarm bell about the extent of the problem.
The story of the Arakurayama Sengen park represents an emblematic case of how tourism, if not carefully managed, can transform from a resource into a threat for local communities and lead to so-called overtourism, mass tourism. The challenge now is to find a sustainable model that allows visitors to enjoy these extraordinary places without compromising the quality of life of those who live there all year round.
We leave you with a video made by the friends of Fuji TV News which well documents the degradation that led to the cancellation of the festival:
