Chinese tourists dominate temple-centered travel in Asia, with Thailand seeing a sharp drop due to safety and infrastructure issues, while Japan faces overcrowded destinations like Kyoto and Nara. Visitor patterns reveal regional tourism, commerce, and cultural trends, leading into Part Two’s focus on China’s domestic travel.
Chinese tourism is a powerful force to contend with, not just in neighboring Asia but within the borders of China itself.
Buddhist temples are quintessential tourist destinations. Open, ornate, ancient and intricate, they are also welcoming to people of any faith. Temples are repositories of history and places of philosophic contemplation where ancient practices are kept alive. They represent some of the finest achievements of traditional art and architecture in countries that are or once were predominantly Buddhist. Central to the geography of the city, temples serve as landmarks around which urban life continues to revolve.
In this two-part piece, I will look at temples in Thailand, Japan and China as a focal point of tourist activity, looking especially at the trends in Chinese tourism in the aftermath of the pandemic. Why is tourism down in Thailand but up in Japan? As for China’s travel scene, one is tempted to ask: Where have all the foreigners gone?
Stops along the way include the Lama Temple and Baitasi in China, Wat Pho and Temple of the Emerald Buddha in Thailand and Kiyomizu-dera and Todaiji in Japan.
In each case, prestigious temples have come to play a role in real estate via a dynamic process by which the temple, though largely free of economic activity, makes the land around it more valuable and coveted.
Temples have much to offer travellers besides good fengshui and photo ops. By their very design and layout, they offer the harried traveller a moment to pause and reflect. They possess an aura of the otherworldly, and once within their precincts, the modern city momentarily vanishes.
Steeped in a splendid isolation in the midst of car-chocked streets and frenetic commercialism of today’s Asia, Buddhist temples are like the eye of a storm, a quiet respite from urban hustle, bustle and noise and commotion revolving around them.
Although temples offer a realm apart from politics, indeed, a place to get away from politics, they are nonetheless bellwethers of political change. Likewise, though designed to be a refuge free of commercialism, the nature of economic activity outside the temple gates is a good indicator of commercial trends.
Recent temple visits in Thailand, Japan and China give rise to several observations about larger geopolitical trends. First, signs of China can be found everywhere. Chinese tourists dominate Asian destinations both in numbers and in terms of spending, creating a modern tourism juggernaut with which few nations can compare.
The Tide Going Out
Chinese tourism is deemed so essential to the health of the Thai tourist business that every indication of a downturn is met with vigorous public relations campaigns and special promotions.
But glossy brochures, catchy slogans and attractive air and hotel packages can only go so far when there are strong political headwinds in the opposite direction. Thailand has suffered as a prime Chinese tourist destination due to increased recent concerns about safety, in part due to several notorious kidnappings, human trafficking and the perception that Thailand is not doing enough to stem the influence of the dangerous and illegal call centers located just across the border in Burma and Cambodia.
At the same time, Thailand’s creaking infrastructure, incessant price-gouging and persistent tourist touts create a negative impression. Finally, Chinese on Chinese crime is frequently reported in the news. Amidst the large number of Chinese residing in Thailand, there is a distinct fringe group engaged in crime, shakedowns and shady practices which makes Thailand a less relaxing destination than it should be.
The must-see temple compounds near the river, including Wat Pho and Temple of the Emerald Buddha, are lapped by hundreds of shops catering to tourists. Economy hotels by the river, with their attendant boat tours, have also become heavily dependent on the Chinese segment of the tourism market.
Chinese tourist arrivals are down by a third this year and it shows. The drastic drop in is visible in half-empty hotels, eerily quiet shopping arcades and empty eateries. Tourism adjacent businesses are hurting.
So dominant was the Chinese presence in Bangkok until a year ago that some old hotels such as the Royal Hotel were re-invented as Chinese bus tour destinations, with the former restaurant converted into a giant Chinese-style buffet for tourists from the mainland.
Closer to the river, signboards and signage in Chinese language abound. Shops selling food, drinks and trinkets have tailored their offerings to appeal to Chinese visitors.
Bubble tea? Yes. Durian? Yes. Mango sticky rice? Yes.
There are even shops with Chinese-only menus, and bilingual menus in Chinese and Thai that don’t bother to offer an English-translation for tourists from the rest of the world.
The Tide Coming In
Visiting the temples of Japan at this time, one gets quite the opposite impression. There are Chinese everywhere and the local merchants, while in the process of adapting, seem simply overwhelmed by the sheer numbers.
Kyoto, long renowned for its beautiful temples, is currently considered the tourist trap of Japan. Tokyo, being a much larger city in population and area, can absorb tourists easier, but Kyoto is creaking under the sudden inrush. Public bus routes that locals depend upon for their daily commute are jammed with tourists consulting their phones every step of the way.
Around temples like Kiyomizu-dera, the streets are filled with visitors in rental kimonos, turning the area into a backdrop for photo ops and TikTok moments.
Nara’s great Todai-ji temple complex is likewise swamped with thousands of Chinese tourists daily. On one level, there is an apt historical echo to this since Todai-ji itself, built around 750 AD, was directly inspired by Chinese architecture of the Tang Dynasty. It’s a cultural treasure, all the more remarkable for being rendered in wood, and it has long outlasted the Chinese prototypes it was based on.
But when vast hordes of people, however appreciative of history, squeeze into a small, semi-sacred area where deer still roam freely and Buddhist monks still chant sutras, it poses not just a threat to the environment, putting stress on the existing infrastructure of food, lodging, toilets, trains, and nature itself, but also erodes the very charm of the place being visited.
Bangkok’s temple streets are quiet, while Kyoto’s are overflowing with visitors, a striking contrast that speaks for itself. Watching who fills these spaces and who is absent offers insight into the currents of tourism, commerce, and culture in the region. In Part Two, the focus turns towards China, where domestic tourists now make up the crowds, reshaping the country’s travel landscape from within.
