The shift in Western perceptions of Kyoto that occurred in the 1870s — from a hotbed of hostile anti-foreign samurai to a “resort of foreign tourists,” as the Japan Times (2 July 1899, 3) put it in a later retrospective article — was a swift and remarkable volte-face. In 1871, Austrian diplomat Alexander Graf von Hübner had a military escort for his fraught visit to the Imperial Palace, describing how “we are stared at with curiosity and coldness […] decidedly, we are not popular” (von Hübner 1874, 48). Four years later, globetrotting British MP Sir Robert Fowler spent the evening “stroll[ing] through the city under moonlight” quoting verse, then a few days later obtained a ticket for his palace tour with little fuss (Fowler 1877, 48).

Following the Ansei treaties of 1858, which opened selected ports for foreign residence and trade, then the end of the civil war ten years later, a limited range of tourist itineraries and services had developed in and around Yokohama and other treaty ports, cities with foreign settlements such as Tokyo, and burgeoning summer resorts like Hakone. 

As a popular travel destination, however, Kyoto stood out. In contrast to Tokyo, the new capital of an industrial modern state, Kyoto was troped as “a sacred city,” “a holy city,” “a city of temples,” Japan’s “Mecca.” And unlike Yokohama or Kobe, there was typically no-one to call on, no foreign community events in which to participate, no business or politics to do — for most visitors, it was a city reserved for leisure, relaxation, and pleasure.

In Kyoto, as elsewhere, a key role in the early development of a tourism infrastructure was played by non-official actors at the grassroots level: the tourists themselves, as well as jinrikisha (人力車, rickshaw) operators, temple priests, photographers, souvenir sellers, guides, hotel and inn owners, and entrepreneurs of all stripes, who recognized the financial and other opportunities presented by this new market of relatively wealthy travellers. Yet also, in the case of Kyoto, the prefectural government supported attempts by local merchants to utilize inbound tourism in order to boost the local economy, some thirty years before tourism gained attention at the national level. 

Beginning with the 1872 exposition of arts and manufacturing, special permits were issued allowing foreigners to enter the city and the organizing committee, the semi-official Kyōto Hakuran Kaisha (京都博覧会社), promoted the event in the treaty ports, arranged Western-style accommodation and food for foreign guests in the Higashiyama area, and supported special events like the first Miyako Odori dance performance in the Gion geisha district (cf. Kudō 2008). 

Especially from the turn of the century, however, there were increasing debates about the benefits for the city of an official tourism policy. In a statement to the city council in June 1900 by Naiki Jinzaburō, the first mayor of Kyoto City (allowed after special provisions for municipal government were abolished two years earlier), the "scenic beauty and historical sightseeing spots" of Higashiyama were claimed as the main draw for foreign visitors, not just to Kyoto but to Japan as a whole. And, increasingly, arguments were put forward in Kyōto Nichide Shinbun newspaper and other public forums that tied Kyoto's prosperity to inbound tourist numbers (Suzuki 2008, 22). This interest in tourism followed national trends but, once again, Kyoto City was something of a forerunner, opening a municipal tourist information office for visitors in 1927 and establishing a tourist bureau (Kyōto-shi Kankō-ka 京都市観光課) in 1930 to promote Kyoto inside and outside Japan, and develop and implement tourism policy (Kyōto-shi Shiseishi Hensan Iinkai 2009).

That recreational travellers should visit and take pleasure in Kyoto’s plethora of historical buildings, entertainment and shopping districts, and gardens was not, considering the city’s central role in the Edo-period travel boom, unprecedented. But the new wave of travellers who visited Kyoto in increasing numbers from the 1870s brought new ideas and expectations about how tourism, as a distinctly modern form of recreational travel, should be practiced. In responding to, and negotiating, their needs, Kyoto was transformed, leading to new types of itineraries and hostelries, new ways of approaching and moving around the city, new amenities, new occupations, new encounters, and new perspectives.