London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 02, 2025

A crash in tourism leaves Japanese deer ravenous for treats

A crash in tourism leaves Japanese deer ravenous for treats

The sacred deer of Nara miss their old diet of rice crackers
THE MORE than 13m tourists who visit Nara, an ancient capital of Japan, each year tend to follow a well-worn path. On their way into a park at the edge of the city they pass the towering wooden pagoda of Kofuku-ji, a temple complex founded in 710.

They continue to nearby Todai-ji, gazing in awe at Japan’s largest Buddha, a bronze behemoth weighing 400 tons and standing 15 metres tall. And finally they feed shika senbei, a special kind of rice cracker, to the sacred deer, some 1,300 of which live in the park.

The deer, though wild, have come to love the crackers. With tourism reduced to a trickle because of the pandemic, they are hungry. Many have begun wandering far from home in search of food.

A recent study by the Nara Deer Preservation Foundation and Tatsuzawa Shirow of Hokkaido University shows that 20% fewer are spending their days in the park; incidents of damage caused by deer in town have shot up. The less enterprising ones, apparently accustomed to eating only crackers, have become emaciated.

The deer are not the only ones going hungry. So are businesses in places like Nara, which have come to rely ever more heavily on tourism in recent years. Fewer than 7m foreign tourists visited Japan in 2009; last year some 32m did.

Revenue from tourism hit a record 4.8trn yen ($46bn). With the Olympics scheduled for this past summer, Japan had hoped to welcome 40m foreigners this year. Instead, after a near-total closure of its borders because of the pandemic, arrivals have dropped by 99.4%.

The government has tried to cushion the blow by encouraging its own citizens to get out more. The Diet earmarked ¥1.35trn ($12.9bn) for “Go To Travel” subsidies, which provide discounts of up to 35% at domestic hotels and inns; a concurrent programme called “Go To Eat” applies to restaurants. The ministry of tourism says nearly 40m nights have been booked under the programme since it was launched in July.

That is a pyrrhic victory: the campaign is thought to have contributed to a recent uptick in covid-19. Daily cases reached a record of 2,680 on November 28th. Suga Yoshihide, Japan’s prime minister, recently announced that the subsidies would be suspended in areas with high caseloads. In addition, older Japanese have been asked not to make use of them.

Japan is loth to give up on tourism, or to let the infrastructure that supports it wither. (Mr Suga himself championed tourism as chief cabinet secretary to his predecessor, Abe Shinzo.)

Officials see spending by foreign visitors as a means to compensate for Japan’s own shrinking population. Tourism may also help make Japan more open to foreign migrants in the future, says Saito Jun of the Japan Centre for Economic Research, a think-tank in Tokyo.

Meanwhile, the more resourceful deer in Nara have reverted to a healthier diet of plants and nuts, which has been good for their insides. Their droppings, made pale and runny by the crackers, have become firmer and darker again. If only belt-tightening were as good for the economy.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×