According to a report by Japan Times, the social photo-sharing service is proving to be super popular among those seeking destinations in Japan that are off the beaten track. Take the small city of Nagato in Yamaguchi Prefecture, for example. After CNN profiled the town’s beautiful Motonosumi-Inari Shrine, postings of the location ballooned on the app. In fact, visitorship to the township increased by 36 times in just three years. In 2017 alone, Nagato saw more than one million visitors from all over the world.
Tourism is booming in Japan. The number of visitors from abroad reached a record in 2017 at 28.7 million, a figure that is likely to rise in the lead up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. However, fewer tourists than ever before are exploring the country with a travel guidebook in hand. Instead, they are relying on a social media app to plan their itineraries — Instagram, to be exact.
According to a report by Japan Times, the social photo-sharing service is proving to be super popular among those seeking destinations in Japan that are off the beaten track. Take the small city of Nagato in Yamaguchi Prefecture, for example. After CNN profiled the town’s beautiful Motonosumi-Inari Shrine, postings of the location ballooned on the app. In fact, visitorship to the township increased by 36 times in just three years. In 2017 alone, Nagato saw more than one million visitors from all over the world.
While they were pleasantly surprised by the impact of Instagram on their town’s popularity, local municipal officials were not quite ready to handle the tourist numbers. The flood of tourists caused four-hour long traffic jams, which meant that roads had to be widened, extra toilets had to be built and parking lots had to be increased.
However, in terms of local economy, it is mostly good news. Even better is the fact that many visitors were coming from overseas. The shrine found 27 foreign currencies in its offertory box. Foreign travellers are turning to Instagram instead of guidebooks to seek out experiences, according to Koki Miyashita of Samurai Meetups, a nonprofit organisation that specialises in tourism. “The style of travelling is changing as they want their trip to be original,” he said.