Comment by the_af

But TikTok and Mario Kart tours are just one form of tourism, which you're equating to all tourism that is not living there for some months or doing volunteer work or, I quote your other comment, "going to conferences" (the hell?).

Why not visit Japan and do sightseeing? Or do you think that's automatically equivalent to Mario Kart tours?

Or like someone else argued (not you, I'm not laying this particular burden on you, just mentioning it because the sentiment is similar) "it's clear cut that it's unethical to do tourism in Barcelona". What!? Well, excuse me if I cannot live in Barcelona permanently or spend 6 months there getting to know the locals, does it mean I should just see Barcelona in the movies? Or maybe just go to Disneyland, since apparently it's all the same thing.

Re: the stereotype, it's true I don't know about Japanese tourists in the last couple of years (let's say post COVID), but if that's because of the yen blah blah then that's no defense of the stereotypical Japanese tourist -- it has nothing to do with ethics if it's just that they cannot afford it anymore. And anyway, the obnoxious Japanese tourist exist(ed) and it was common in my country, so why give them a free pass just because this article mentions the kind of tourism that bothers them?

In any case: tourism isn't necessarily evil. You can simply not be the loud careless tourist who trashes everything, is not respectful and complains about everything. A lot of us cannot spend 3 months doing volunteer work or whatever, we just want to see the world and enjoy its wonders in the 2-week or so vacation we get once a year, and planning for the whole family, not just for a single person in their 20s with no attachments and who can backpack the world for a year or whatever.