Gion’s ¥10,000 Fine for Its Private Alleys — and Japanese Viewers Blame the Tour Guides, Not You
祇園の私道は罰金1万円…でも地元民が責めるのは観光客ではなくツアーガイド
By Rakutaro · Tokyo, Japan
Kyoto's Gion district warns that stepping into its private side-alleys — where visitors had been chasing geiko for photos — will cost you ¥10,000, a charge the neighborhood council posted on its own 2024 signs rather than a legal fine. When a Japanese news crew filmed people walking past those signs anyway, the top of the 2,953-comment thread didn't pile on the foreign tourists. It turned on the Japanese tour guides leading them in. The most-liked comment (3,247 likes) is blunt: fine the guides who “play dumb” and walk tourists past the signs. Others want the guide companies named and charged per head they bring in, and point out that if Japanese guides won't respect the rule, tourists can't be expected to either. The takeaway for a visitor: it isn't you they resent, but you're the one who pays.
These comments are from a video published in 2024. Prices, rules and crowds may have moved since; anything we checked ourselves is marked with a source.
“I assumed it was foreign tourists ignoring the signs — but no, it's the tour guides walking them right through.”
外国人が無視して通ってるのかと思ったらツアーの人間が通してるじゃんか
FAQ
- Can you take photos in Gion?
- On the public streets, yes. The ban covers Gion's marked private side-alleys, the lanes where visitors were chasing geiko for photos. The ¥10,000 is not a legal fine: it is the sum the Gion Minamigawa district council, which manages those lanes for the landowners, says on its signs it will charge anyone who enters. Signs first went up in 2019 against photography, and from April 2024 the council extended them to ban passing through at all. A lawyer interviewed by Bengo4 notes that only national or local government can impose an actual fine.
Sources: bengo4.com · ktv.jp — checked 2026-08-24
- Who do Japanese viewers blame for the Gion photo problem?
- Not foreign tourists. The most-liked comment (3,247 likes) demands fines for the Japanese tour guides who “play dumb” and lead groups past the signs, and others want the guide companies named publicly and fined per person they bring in.
- How do I avoid the ¥10,000 fine in Gion?
- Stay on the public streets and treat the marked lanes as what they are — someone's home. Don't follow a tour group in: Japanese viewers say it's often the guides who walk people past the signs, but the fine lands on the person who enters.
"You Always Make Such A Neat Job Of Messing It Up": What Kyoto Locals Really Mean, And Where The Stereotype Breaks Down
“I greeted the lady who comes to clean our office with "thanks for your hard work, we really appreciate it," and she said: "Not at all. Though you do always make such a neat job of messing it up." I felt a very powerful sense of Kyoto.”
Read this roundupThis is one of 13 local roundups for Kyoto. See them all →
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What Japanese people said — picked from the top 60 of 2,953 comments
Fine the tour guides who play dumb and lead tourists in!
知らないふりして観光客を入れているツアーガイドに罰金を！
Start by cracking down hard on the Japanese guides doing the escorting.
まずはアテンドしてる日本人ガイドを厳しく取り締まった方がいい
It's the Japanese tour guides who have to follow the rules. Chasing money, trampling the sense of order that's part of what makes Japan good — they should just bill the tour companies for the fines.
日本のツアーガイドがルール守らなくちゃ駄目でしょ 金儲けに走って日本の良さでもある秩序を乱し過ぎなんだから ツアー会社に罰金請求したらいいのに
The guides know exactly what they're doing, which makes it malicious.
ツアーガイドは知ってて違反してるだろうから悪質
Honestly, make the guides parading tourists around pay too — one ¥10,000 fine for each person they lead in.
なんなら観光客連れ歩くツアーガイド側にも罰金払ってもらえよ。連れ歩く人数分の罰金
If Japanese people won't follow the rule, there's no way you can make foreigners follow it either. That's the everyday ethics these guides operate on — so unless the penalties on guides get tough, ¥10,000 is far too soft.
日本人がルールを守ってないなら外国人にまで守らせることなんて不可能 そういう倫理観で普段から生活しているのだから、ツアーガイドに関する罰則を厳しくしないと、１万円とか生ぬるい
Domestic Japanese guide companies are the very people who should be warning inbound guests and teaching them the manners — and yet they keep leading the violations. If they won't stop, the company names should be published on the Tourism Agency and Kyoto Prefecture websites.
国内の日本人ガイド会社が、インバウンド客に注意勧告してマナーを教えるべき立場なのに・・・ 悪質行為を続けるならば会社名を観光庁や京都府HPでどんどん公表して欲しいですね。
It made me angry to watch. People should put themselves in the residents' shoes — how would you feel if someone barged onto your own private property? What really stunned me was the tour guides brazenly ignoring the signs.
見ていて腹が立ちました。自分の身に置き換えて容赦なく私有地に侵入されたらどうするのか考えるべきです。特にツアーガイド達が堂々と看板を無視しているのには驚き呆れました