According to a recent article in The Guardian newspaper, shopkeepers in Gion, a popular neighbourhood in Japan’s Kyoto, are greeting the return of tourists with both optimism and trepidation.

Japan dropped Covid-19 entry restrictions for foreigners on October 11 and those tourism-related businesses that survived the Great Pause are welcoming their return but are scrabbling to replace the staff that had to be let go during the pandemic.

“Hotel employment fell by 22 per cent between 2019 and 2021, according to government data, and other sectors that rely on tourism say shortages of staff and supply chain disruption mean they are unable to cope with a sharp rise in visitor numbers,” reports The Guardian.

Until the Chinese return, there is no possibility Japan will see the 31.8 million who arrived in 2019 – far less than the 40 million the country’s tourism authorities were aiming for in 2020 (little did they know!) – but worrywarts in Kyoto are preparing for the worst nonetheless.

“Multilingual signs ask visitors not to spread out on the street in case they block traffic, and to refrain from touching or photographing private property. Others remind them not to approach maiko and geiko traditional entertainers for selfies – a major problem before the pandemic.”

The hope is that by spreading the load, life will be simpler for visitors and locals alike.

In the meantime, “things can only improve, and I’m looking forward to giving foreign visitors a warm welcome,” Gion kimono shop owner Hiroko Inoue told The Guardian. She qualified that with, “I just hope that they follow the rules.”

Some 5,500km (3,400 miles) south of Kyoto, the locals in need of protection stand on four legs, not two.

Unfortunately for most residents of Labuan Bajo town – the jumping-off point for trips to the islands and waters of the national park – such a move would be disastrous.

Those whose livelihoods are tied to tourism in Komodo National Park have been protesting the suggested changes, a tussle that looks like it will simmer at least until the beginning of January 2023, when a delayed massive price increase for park entry tickets is due to be implemented.

In Hong Kong, the problem of overtourism – or at least “overvisitation”, since many of the city’s usual 55-million-plus arrivals cannot rightly be described as “tourists” – will not become a pressing one again for some time, until the border with mainland China reopens and the process of arriving becomes smoother. But there’s no harm in planning.

Which is what they have been doing across Europe.

While the likes of Venice, Barcelona and Amsterdam plot how to attract fewer overall visitors but more of a higher class (read: bigger spenders), specific measures are being experimented with elsewhere.

For example, France is planning to trial a “visitor’s permit” for Sugiton, a cove on the southern coast near Marseilles that attracts more than 1,500 visitors a day in high season but is threatened by severe erosion.

Meanwhile, the Balearic government has capped the number of hotel beds on the Spanish island of Mallorca at 430,000, a limit that will be reduced over the next four years.

Major Laos festival to return with a bang in November

Believed to enshrine a relic of Buddha, Pha That Luang is Laos’ most important religious monument; the “Great Stupa” even takes pride of place on the country’s kip banknotes.

It is also ground zero for the That Luang Festival, three days of religious ceremonies, processions and festivities based around the full moon of the 12th lunar month, in November.

A highlight of the third day of the festival is a tikhy match. Tikhy is a game similar to hockey played with sticks and ball, traditionally by two teams, representing the people and the establishment.

The festival dates back to the 16th century but a more recent appendage is a trade fair, of which great things are expected this time around, following the cancellations of the Covid years.

“The Lao authorities are inviting businesses from China, Thailand and Vietnam to take part in a trade fair, which will take place on November 4-8,” reports the Xinhua news agency. “The trade fair will exhibit Lao-made products, tourism products, as well as railway, expressways and logistics parks.”

Sounds like fun.