Japan 'snow monkey' park to limit visitors over bad tourist behaviour, overcrowding

A popular Japanese park where wild monkeys bathe in natural hot springs will cap daily visitor numbers and move to online ticketing from August 2026.

This follows a surge in crowds and a run of bad tourist behaviour, The Japan Times reported.

Tourists tried to bathe with the monkeys

Jigokudani Monkey Park is a popular attraction in Nagano, Japan, famous for its wild Japanese macaques.

In recent years, visitor numbers have climbed sharply, sometimes hitting 3,000 to 4,000 a day.

The vast majority are foreign tourists, according to a park official who declined to be named.

As the crowds grew, so did instances of poor behaviour, with some visitors trying to feed or touch the animals.

Some even tried to bathe with them, according to the report.

Not a human onsen: Park

The park's official guidance tells visitors not to feed, touch or stare at the monkeys, to keep their distance, and not to bring pets.

Those who break the rules may be asked to leave.

On bathing, the park is even more blunt. Its guide page states:

"Our facility is to provide the place for observation of monkeys' ecology to everyone. [It is] not an onsen (hot spring) facility for human bathing."

Overtourism problem

The official said the queues have become a major problem:

"We have been seeing incredibly long queues of visitors waiting outside the ticket booth. To ease that, we will have them buy tickets in advance online.”

The park will introduce the online booking system in August, with a possible daily cap of 2,000 people, according to The Japan Times.

On its own website, the park separately confirmed the change, saying it often receives more visitors than it can accommodate during the winter season, which leads to long queues outside the entrance.

It added that it will introduce online ticket sales with fixed visit dates to reduce crowding.

Part of a wider overtourism problem

The crackdown comes as Japan grapples with record tourist numbers.

About 42.7 million tourists visited Japan in 2025, an all-time high, with the weak yen making the country a more affordable "bucket list" destination.

That boom has also fuelled friction elsewhere.

In Kyoto, tourists have been accused of harassing kimono-clad geisha performers in the rush for photos.

A cherry blossom festival near Mount Fuji in Fujiyoshida was also cancelled after residents said their "quiet lives" were under threat, with complaints of trespassing, littering and people defecating in private gardens.