Comment by 4fterd4rk
1 day ago
It's like The Bear. Ohhhhh no I've opened a restaurant and now there are customers aaaaahhhhh this is horrible ahhhhhhhh
1 day ago
It's like The Bear. Ohhhhh no I've opened a restaurant and now there are customers aaaaahhhhh this is horrible ahhhhhhhh
Yeah that was sort of the vibe I got too. I understand the point of the article, that regular customers are a nicer customer base than tourists, but it sort of has a pretentious "most tourists aren't worth of Japan" hypothesis to the article which feels silly once you think about it in a broader, economic scope
I guess it depends on the local culture. Japanese relationships are probably a lot less transactional but more “knowing your customers”.
Yea this was major de-growther vibes to me. A couple of small businesses getting swamped just means you don't have enough small businesses. It's true that generally there aren't enough small businesses.
I'd like our productivity gains to free up people to pursue their weird jazz-coffee bar fantasies and start more businesses. That's a better world to me than the the one OP is trying to get us to retreat to.
There's lots of terrible things about social media but its ability to spread the wealth of attention to small businesses is probably the best thing about it.
Bad tourists? FINE THEM. I realize the Japanese don't like to see their relationships as transactional, but they have foreigners there and managing their behavior via transactions is totally fair to me.
P.S: I know, I know I have recently been to Japan and seen its over-tourism first hand. I also don't know a country better equipped to get a handle on it and gasp scale.
I kind of assumed "tourists are crowding me out of my favorite spaces so this must be true everywhere" which is a lot easier to assume than prove.
Anyone who's ever worked in customer support will tell you that dealing with customer regularly sucks balls, even worse if they're foreign and don't know the local language, customs and etiquette so they annoy you and your local patrons while thinking they're entitled to because "we spend money here and support your economy", or even more worse if they're foreign and also intoxicated or acting up for the camera (social media streamers).
Hospitality is already a low margin business, so if you're a small business owner and need to deal with the customers yourself instead of via hired work, why would you want that extra hassle of dealing with annoying foreigners unless it's purely for milking them dry with huge markups for it to be worth it?
I am in Spain (where people, imho wrongfully, think tourism is ruining everything) and I dont see the issue; my wife and myself make enough in the summer to not have anything to do the rest of the year. I have IT businesses which I scale back to run the pub in summer for 3 month. I don't really care about whatever they do as long as it is not fighting: the more drunk and loud they are, especially guys with girls, the more they will just basically order anything of whatever price. And many of them. And yeah, some drinks and food locals would never ever buy so we mark them up 10x. Do not see an issue with that: it is not hidden and locals dont pay less for the same product: it is on the menu, everyone can see it, it's just not popular while for some groups of foreigners it's the first they ask. Welcome please!
My impression of these Japanese small businesses is that many are run purely as lifestyle businesses and making more money isn't the point. They're run for the owners to feel a sense of accomplishment and ownership and give something back to the community. There is no desire to close the business and go on vacation, especially if it means being very aggravated when they are opened.
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Based on your other comment where you say "innit," I suspect you're not Spanish?
It sounds like you're a Brit who opened a pub in Spain for other Brits to get sloshed at. Is this wrong?
Which is why it's better to not have any customers. And not make any money, because dealing with taxes sucks balls, too. Best, really, is not to be alive, because otherwise you'll need to deal with illness, hunger, sadness and stuff.
Way to miss the point. Most foreigners in other countries can't behave.
Well it is a job innit? Most my well paid CTOs and tech contacts I meet cannot behave either. They always have to be rude that I am just a small fish, misspell my name every time to be funny or lazy or whatnot etc. I don't care, pay the bill within 14 days, cheers.
They don't have a problem with customers, they have a problem with foreign customers that often can't behave. Being c-suite doesn't give one a free pass to be an asshole. I suggest reading the source that the linked post is an answer to: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/kyoto-japan-tourism-...
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