Japan’s iconic cherry blossom festival cancelled over fear of unruly tourists: ‘Citizens are threatened’

Doom and bloom.

The iconic cherry blossom festival in Japan has been cancelled over fears that a recent influx of disruptive tourists — fueled by viral travel content on social media — is encroaching on the “quiet lives” of locals.

On Tuesday, officials in the city of Fujiyoshida, near Mount Fuji, announced that they won’t be hosting the Arakurayama Sengen Park cherry blossom festival this year, citing a rise in disruptive behavior from tourists.

“Behind [Mount Fuji’s] beautiful landscape is the reality that the quiet lives of citizens are threatened. We have a strong sense of crisis,” Shigeru Horiuchi, Fujiyoshida mayor, said in a statement, per The Japan Times.

“To protect the dignity and living environment of our citizens, we have decided to bring the curtain down on the 10-year-old festival.”

The weeks-long event has been held in the city for the past decade, seeing 10,000 visitors daily and drawing in 200,000 tourists annually.

In 2025, about 42.7 million tourists traveled to Japan — marking an all-time high and topping the record of nearly 37 million in 2024.

But residents have been complaining of overcrowding, and tourists have been accused of harassing locals and disrupting their culture.

In Fujiyoshida specifically, the rise of tourists has led to chronic traffic jams, tossed cigarette butts, trespassing, littering, “opening private home doors without permission to use the restroom” and even “defecating in private yards and raising a fuss when residents pointed this out,” the city said.

Parents have also expressed concern about children being pushed aside on school routes due to tourists crowding sidewalks, according to Kyodo News.

However, the city did note that even if the festival is cancelled, the park — which looks over Mount Fuji, cherry blossom trees and a five-story pagoda — might still see an influx of tourists in the spring as its a popular tourist attraction.

The town sees more than 10,000 visitors per day during cherry blossom season because of “factors such as the weak yen and the explosive popularity fueled by social media.”

City officials reportedly plan to manage the tourism by increasing security, adding temporary parking and installing portable toilets.