2020 TOP 100 GOOD
PRACTICE STORY
Title of the Story: Improving seasonality - levelling per-month
tourist number
Destination Name: (include any state, province or region)
Kyoto CityCountry: Japan

Submitter name: Takuya Nishimatsu
Email address: nshmt@city.kyoto.lg.jp
Position: Director of Tourism Strategy Division, Kyoto City
Nomination Category: (Please check the boxes that indicate the focus of yourstory)☒ Culture & Communities☐ Environment & Climate☐ Nature & Ecotourism☐ Islands & Seaside☐ Immediate responses in dealing with the COVID -19☐ Post COVID -19 recovery☐ One of the 17 SDGs* (if yes, which one) Click or tap to choose*The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, were adopted by all United Nations Member Statesin 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by2030. The 17 SDGs are integrated—that is, they recognize that action in one area will affect outcomes in others, and thatdevelopment must balance social, economic and environmental sustainability. What are the Sustainable Development Goals?
https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals.html
For further information on Tourism for SDGs: http://tourism4sdgs.org/

Find detailed instructions for submitting good practices here

DESCRIBE YOUR GOOD PRACTICE STORY
Address each aspect of your good practice story in the different sections being specific including relevant quantitativeand qualitative information.

Issues faced
Kyoto City has beautiful nature, a long history of over 1200 years, temples and shrines, as well as
cultural traditions including tea ceremony, flower arrangement, Noh theater, and Kyogen, which
attract many domestic and international tourists. However, one of the problems was that there wasa significant difference in the number of tourists in each month. In particular, many tourists visited
especially during the autumn color season. In 2003, the month with the highest number of tourists
was 3.6 times higher than the month with the lowest number (e.g., November: 6.66 million;
February: 1.86 million). It was the most significant difference the city ever had.
In particular, traffic congestion around popular tourist sites during peak months had a significant
impact on the local residents' lives. It was necessary to narrow the gap of the number of tourists
between the busiest and the slowest seasons in order to ease these problems, and to achieve
stable management for tourism-related businesses.

Methods, steps and tools applied
In order to close the gap, Kyoto City made a significant investment in developing and promoting
attractions and activities for the off-season, especially in summer and winter. Specifically, in thewinter of 2003, the city began a "Hanatoro" project, which adorned nighttime streets with "lights"(more than 2,000 lanterns) and "flowers" (flower arrangements). In the winter of 2009, the Kyoto
Restaurant Winter Special was developed, in which long-established restaurants offer menu items
at special prices during the off-season. Furthermore, Kyoto City put more efforts on attracting
international tourists, who follow a seasonality patten different from domestic tourists, by providing
information to more overseas representatives to increase media coverage in foreign countries. At
the same time, the city improved the facilities for international visitors, such as multilingualsignages and duty-free shops. As a result of the above efforts in cooperation with local
communities and private sectors, the number of tourists levelled in the peak months andincreased in the off-peak months, thus reducing the gap in tourist numbers between seasons.
Key success factors
In order to attract new visitors in off-seasons (summer and winter), it was essential to encourage
the understanding and cooperation of local stakeholders. In case of the “Hanatouro” project, theproject purpose was shared among the local residents, private businesses, and entities including
temples and shrines. Collaboration was made successfully - local residents helped installing thelanterns in the streets and temples and shrines allowed nighttime visits. As a result, the event has
now grown to attract about two million visitors every year.
Furthermore, as a result of efforts to improve foreign tourists' satisfaction, such as offering
language supports and increasing the number of shops accepting credit cards, the city has
gradually risen in the ranking of the best tourist destinations of some of the leading international
travel magazines. In 2014 and 2015, Kyoto City was selected as the world's best city to visit by
the readers of Travel and Leisure Magazine, which increased the city’s recognition and branding
as a tourism destination worldwide.

Lessons learned
Since attracting visitors to the off-season would create a new activity in a previously quiet period, it
was necessary to promote an understanding of the residents in the area. The city held frequentmeetings with the residents' associations and tried to gain their approval by taking various safetymeasures regarding congestion and traffic problems.
Furthermore, as the importance of word-of-mouth communication such as SNS and review sites
increases, in 2010 the city started to conduct an annual questionnaire survey of 4,000 Japaneseand 1,600 foreign tourists to ascertain the level of their satisfaction. In line with this, the city
continuously works to understand and resolve any kind of dissatisfaction. As a result, the level offoreign tourists' satisfaction remains nearly 100%, which leads to a further increase in the city's
global reputation.

Results, achievements and recognitions
Kyoto City has taken numerous measures to reduce the gap in the number of tourists by monthand to improve tourist satisfaction. As a result, the gap in the tourist number between the highest
and the lowest seasons reduced from 3.6 times (2003) to 1.3 times (2019), while the city’s total
tourism consumption increased from 479.4 billion yen in 2003 to 1,236.7 billion yen in 2019.
As for levelling in the number of tourists during the peak months, the longest traffic congestion in
an Arashiyama area in the autumn season decreased from 2.7 km in 2001 to 0.4 km in 2019. The
occupancy rate of major hotels in Kyoto City remained relatively good even in the off-seasonbefore COVID-19 outbreak, which was 80.1% in February 2019. By improving the difference in thenumber of tourists between the busy season and the off-season, the city was able to easecongestion and stabilize the management of tourism-related businesses.

Additional references
The number of tourists in Kyoto City (comparison between 2003 and 2019)
Trends in Travel Spending
Trends in the number of foreign guests and satisfaction level
Examples of Inbound Tourism Initiatives
Travel + Leisure rankings*Please refer to the attached documents.