BIEI, Hokkaido--This farming town of around 9,300 people has learned it needs financial help to accommodate the 2 million tourists who flood the area annually.

The town is set to levy the first new tax in Hokkaido to mitigate the impact of overtourism.

Biei, located in central part of Japan’s northern main island, is renowned for breathtaking landscapes with rolling hills covered by a patchwork of fields and tall trees.

The town’s main industry is agriculture, particularly wheat and potatoes.

But tourist money started to pour in 2012, after Apple Inc. used a photo of Shirogane Blue Pond in Biei as a desktop wallpaper.

The pond, a manmade reservoir with a strikingly blue hue apparently caused by aluminum deposits, features dead standing larch trees in the center.

Previously obscure, the pond, against the lush green background of the surrounding forest, has provided fantastic photo opportunities for busloads of tourists.

In 2023, the town had 2.38 million visitors, the second most in its history.

The Biei government has taken a host of measures to accommodate the needs and meet the expectations of tourists while protecting the well-being of residents.

But now under financial pressure, Biei plans to impose taxes on both overnight guests and day visitors to fund the town’s tourism-related initiatives, possibly by fiscal 2026.

One target for the levies is the parking fee near the town’s pond.

Mayor Hiroyuki Kakuwa acknowledged the importance of achieving sustainable tourism, calling it “essential” to the town.

Kakuwa said Biei strives to strike a balance between farming and tourism, noting that agricultural landscapes are a crucial tourism resource.

“Tourism is pivotal in attracting people to Biei where they can settle or get involved in local events,” he said. “We should work to sustain the tourism industry.”

On one weekday in September, the town-run paid parking lot near the pond was getting crowded with large sightseeing buses and cars.

Most of the tourists were from overseas, including South Korea and Taiwan.

“The congestion is not so bad today, compared with other days,” said a local man working as a trip adviser there.

The man, who picked up trash at the site that day, said the town had a nightmarish experience during the tourism peak time this summer.

So many vehicles arrived that a traffic jam formed at the mechanical toll gate to the parking area. Town employees were quickly deployed to collect the fees manually to untangle the snarl, he said.

The town has relocated electricity poles at scenic sites to keep them out of the pictures that tourists take. Signs were installed to show the locations for ideal photo shoots.

Biei also provides an online service showing real-time congestion levels.

Despite the town’s efforts, the legions of travelers are often a nuisance for local residents.

A road that only tractors used is occasionally blocked by parked sightseeing buses and cars.

Some visitors have even entered private farm fields without the owner’s permission to take pictures. Others take rests on roads, while others litter.

The town, in an effort to discourage travelers from violating rules of conduct, created a system to urge people to send images of visitors’ problematic behavior online to authorities.

An AI-operated surveillance camera was set up last year in a rope-off farmland where a sole tree, called the Christmas Tree, stands, making for stunning scenery. It is a 40-minute drive from Shirogane Blue Pond.

The equipment sounds a warning via a speaker in Japanese, Korean, Chinese and English as soon as its sensor detects a trespasser.

The town hall’s spending to tackle overtourism has increased.

It set aside 526 million yen ($3.5 million), or around 5 percent of the town’s overall budget for fiscal 2024, for tourism and related programs.

With the number of visitors forecast to rise in the years ahead, Biei has weighed measures to come up with extra funds.

Ordinarily, levying a tax on overnight travelers is the way to go. But most visitors to the town are day-trippers.

In fiscal 2023, Biei received 2,267,700 day-travelers, around 19 times the number of overnight guests.

So the town aims to cast a wider net by also imposing a tax on single-day visitors, who are most likely to visit the pond, through an increase in parking fees.

Current parking charges are 2,000 yen for large buses and 500 yen for cars.

The town eyes tripling the figures by imposing tax of 4,000 yen and 1,000 yen, respectively.

Overnight guests will likely be required to pay 300 yen per night per person.

Biei was inspired by Dazaifu, a city where the famed Dazaifu Tenmangu Shinto shrine is located, in Fukuoka Prefecture on the southern main island of Kyushu.

Dazaifu began collecting a tax at all of the city’s paid parking lots in 2003 under a dedicated ordinance.

The city uses the annual tax revenue of 70 million yen raised through the parking fees to maintain historic buildings, promote tourism and set up extra toilets for the New Year holidays, when the city is inundated by worshippers.

“Initially, there were much opposition to the new tax,” a Dazaifu city official said. “But people are more understanding to the initiative now.”