This powder paradise in Japan is a magnet for tourists. Locals say the party is getting out of hand

By Sam Peters, CNN

Hakuba, Japan (CNN) — At 5 p.m., the line outside Ohyokkuri has already begun to form. The traditional izakaya, or pub, is so popular that people start waiting outside for half an hour before it opens to get a seat.

On the other side of the village, skiers at the Après Bar sip beers and Aperol Spritz, trying not to slip on the wooden floors in their ski boots as they dance to the loud music.

It’s an average night out during the ski season in Japan’s Hakuba Valley, on the main island of Honshu, outside the city of Nagano. Sitting in the Japanese Alps, it’s made up of 10 ski areas, which have collectively become a global ski destination known for consistent snow, tall mountains and a fun atmosphere.

The influx of foreign visitors, however, has not been entirely welcomed by locals, who complain of drunk, rowdy tourists.

Their complaints have been so strong that the mayor of Hakuba village, Toshiro Maruyama, has introduced new fines aimed at curtailing the rise of antisocial behavior. The penalties, which run up to 50,000 yen ($321), will come into force in July, and can be issued by police for offenses including drinking alcohol while walking outside, being noisy at night or setting off fireworks.

They are an extension of an ordinance put in place 10 years ago banning such behaviors. Without penalties though, it had little impact. Maruyama says local businesses petitioned him to introduce a punishment for those flouting the rules.

But not everyone agrees the fines are necessary. Marcus Bauder, CEO of Hakuba Hospitality Group (HHG), a property management company that runs 10 hotels and 13 restaurants in the valley, as well as managing private chalets and apartments, tells CNN the issue is “overblown.”

“There are areas in Hakuba that in the wintertime, at night, it does get a bit louder and you have pubs and bars,” says Bauder. But “this is not unusual for any tourist town in the world. It’s not unique to Japan, it’s not unique to Hakuba.”

The same goes for concerns around overtourism in the village.

“We’re far from it,” Bauder said. “Christmas and New Year gets very busy, but the majority of the year there is no tourism, and we’re trying to build it up. If we send out the message that we have overtourism problems, I think it’s very wrong.”

A walk through Happo-One, famous for hosting events during the 1998 Winter Olympics, makes it easy to understand both sides’ opposing concerns. The town feels distinctly Western, and its famed powder makes it an appealing destination for global travelers.

However, the resorts have retained much of their Japanese charm, while still catering to a Western clientele.

“Sometimes you forget you are in Japan, there’s so many Australians,” one Australian farmer on a ski holiday told CNN. The appeal, he said, is the nightlife. While other resorts might be quieter and less Westernized, “there wasn’t much else to do once the sun set,” he said.

At the same time, Hakuba feels markedly quieter than ski resorts in the US or Europe. Whilst Hakuba skiers often complain that aging lifts and poorly thought-out runs can create the occasional bottleneck, queues are rare and on an average day, you’ll have a piste to yourself.

But the growing number of skiers making the journey to Japan means that Hakuba will only get busier.

Closing the gates

“The overtourism word is a bit difficult to explain,” Maruyama tells CNN.

It is not just a question of numbers — 1,064,000 people came to Hakuba to ski in 2025. However, Hakuba’s ski tourism peaked in 1992 with 2,785,000 skiers. The difference, according to the mayor, is that the visitors in 1992 were almost all Japanese. These new visitors are foreign, and there are concerns they are driving up prices.

Most traditional minshuku, family-run inns, in Hakuba serve breakfast and dinner to guests. However, the Western model of eating out for dinner has made restaurants busier and more expensive. Whilst the weak Yen means that a ¥1,300 ($8.25) bowl of ramen feels like good value to a tourist, it is far too high for locals, says Maruyama.

The number of foreign tourists visiting the small town in winter also means that supermarkets and shuttle buses are often crowded and noisy, a world away from the communal quiet of Tokyo’s subway.

And the tension peaks at night. Echoland, a nightlife area of Happo-One, is where most of the problems happen, and local business owners have complained about noisy, drunk tourists.

Bauder agrees that there can be problems and says “businesses have a responsibility” to prevent the issues in the first place.

Property prices have also gone up in Hakuba by 130% since the pandemic, according to some sources.

But Bauder says that much of the growth in the resort town has been to the benefit of Japanese hoteliers whose property value has not increased since the 1990s. When Nagano won the bid to host the 1998 Winter Olympics, there was a flurry of construction in the area and a high-speed train line was built, reducing the travel time from Tokyo to around 90 minutes.

In Hakuba, which hosted 11 events, many hotels took on debts to pay for the work. But when the asset bubble burst in 1992 and real estate prices fell, they found themselves struggling to recoup their investments.

Though he declined to disclose details, Bauder said that HHG recently purchased a hotel in Wadano, an area of Hakuba, from a Japanese couple for 250 million yen ($1.6 million) that was worth less than 46 million yen ($300,000) before the pandemic.

It is not just foreigners buying expensive property in the village. La Vigne, a new high-end condominium complex, said that 82% of its condos were sold to Japanese buyers. The most expensive sold for 270 million yen ($1.8 million).

A difficult balancing act

Hakuba is one of many Japanese destinations struggling to find a balance with tourism.

In the post-pandemic years, a steady stream of incidents stemming from overtourism has hit headlines, everywhere from Kyoto to Hokkaido. Most recently, a famous cherry blossom festival in Fujiyoshida, near Mount Fuji, was cancelled following complaints of disrespectful tourists.

The country is more popular than ever. According to official stats, 42.6 million people visited in 2025, despite a slowdown in Chinese tourists, who made up 26% of visitors in 2025, due to a diplomatic row between China and Japan over Taiwan. Tourism is now Japan’s second largest export, worth 9.5 trillion yen.

The country hopes to attract 60 million visitors a year by 2030.

Back in Hakuba, mayor Maruyama is grateful that tourists support the local economy, but says that the national government offers little help to areas dealing with the negative impact of too many visitors.

He recently introduced a hotel tax to help fund public services, like road maintenance and local buses, which have come under strain from the influx of visitors.

Bauder however criticized the implementation, saying it would drive away tourists in the summer months, an area the mayor is keen to grow. The ski season usually begins in late November and ends in early May.

But if more tourists are coming to Japan, they need to spread out, says Maruyama, echoing tourism experts who stress the need to attract visitors to the country’s lesser-known areas to ease the pressure on popular destinations feeling the strain.

At the moment, there is little he can do.

“We have no gate,” he said.

Cold smoke

Ski tourism in Japan has “gone nuts” since the Covid pandemic, says Charlie Cohn who, alongside his brother Jake, runs Snowlocals, a travel agency specializing in ski trips to Japan.

The pair first came to Japan in 2011. Jake was a professional skier and, in return for a free lift pass and a bed, they made promotional videos for Japanese resorts. The country was still recovering from the tsunami and resorts were desperate for tourists.

Soon, the pair had a reputation amongst pro-skiers for knowing where to find good snow, and they began their travel agency. Initially, their customers were the most dedicated of skiers, willing to sleep in a van. Now, Cohn says that they mostly focus on high-end trips.

The draw, he says, is the snow — “It’s giggling powder skiing all the time.”

Cold, dry air travels across Siberia and hits the Sea of Japan, where it picks up moisture. As these currents pass over Japan’s mountains, they bring snow, and lots of it. Some resorts get around 15 meters a year. The snow is so dry and light that it is sometimes called “cold smoke” for the plumes of snow that come off skiers and linger in the air.

Skiing in Japan is also still relatively cheap.

“If you were a family looking for a ski vacation to Telluride, you could fly to Japan at least for the same price, probably for less,” explains Cohn.

The resorts are uncrowded in comparison to US or European ones, though the infrastructure is often dated. The highest lift in Niseko, a resort in Hokkaido popular with foreigners, is a single-person chair whose square seats have earned it the nickname “Pizza Box.”

American and European skiers come to Japan specifically to ski deep powder in the trees. In most Japanese resorts, these areas are off limits and roped off, but foreign skiers just “duck the ropes,” say locals. Some resorts, like Rusutsu in Hokkaido, have begun allowing people to ski in the trees, but most resorts have settled into an uneasy position of not allowing, but not actively stopping skiers from going off-piste.

However, over 80% of people needing rescue in the backcountry of Hokkaido this season have been foreigners, according to officials.

A spokesperson for Hakuba Valley said that with the increase in foreign tourists, they are “concerned” that the number of accidents may increase and they are actively trying to raise awareness of the dangers of skiing in the backcountry.

Cohn says there is a problem with skiers going into the backcountry when “they don’t have the skills to be going where they’re going.” That is no different, he points out, to the US or the Alps, and there are inherent risks.

Speaking to tourists around Hakuba, few had heard about the fines, and few businesses seemed to be keen on telling their clients that there are extra rules they need to follow on their holiday.

There is a risk that introducing fines could send a message to tourists that they are not welcome and encourage them to go elsewhere. Maruyama does not disagree: “If these people move to other places, I think it’s not such a bad thing.”

Whilst Hakuba might have a reputation for being full of young rowdy travelers, HHG said that only 22% of their guests are under 25. Their biggest demographic, at 33%, is 36-45.

Despite the growing number of tourists, Happo-One is quiet at night. By 9 p.m., the skiers at the Après Bar have gone home to take their boots off, and small groups of tourists meander out of restaurants. The queue outside Ohyokkuri has gone, and the “Closed” sign is already out.

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