Photo/Illutration Foreign tourists take photos of Mount Fuji looming over a convenience store in Fuji-Kawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture. (Shin Toyohira)

FUJI-KAWAGUCHIKO, Yamanashi Prefecture--The hope here is that badly behaved foreign tourists have learned their lesson and there will be no need to block views of majestic Mount Fuji in the future.

“I feel that unspoken rules are sinking in among foreign tourists because there has been an improvement in the littering situation and they have been abiding by the lines formed to take photos,” Mayor Hideyuki Watanabe told a news conference on Nov. 29.

Authorities in May erected a plastic sheet, 20 meters long and 2.5 meters high, in front of a convenience store after residents complained that foreign tourists were littering and crossing the street in a dangerous manner to get good shots of the 3,776-meter-high mountain.

Watanabe said the black sheet would remain in storage unless the situation worsened considerably.

The sheet was removed on Aug. 15 with the approach of a typhoon. The mayor had been pondering whether to erect it again.

There were fears that doing so would give the mistaken image that the town was not welcoming foreign or domestic tourists nor utilizing its tourism resources properly, according to a high-ranking town government official.

Watanabe said at the news conference that his town welcomed tourists.

“We should not be transmitting a negative image by blocking (the view with the sheet),” he said. “I want foreign tourists to take pretty pictures of Mount Fuji.”

But not all the problems have gone away.

Foreign tourists still tend to ignore the crosswalks on both sides of the convenience store in crossing the street to take photos.

Officials have also noted an increase in visitors trying to capture snow-capped Mount Fuji.

The town government has installed an 80-centimeter-high metal railing extending for six meters between the sidewalk in front of the convenience store and the prefectural road. Another railing has been installed on the other side of the road to prevent jaywalking.

There are also plans to paint the crosswalk green to attract the attention of pedestrians and encourage them to use the crosswalk.

“Convenience store Mount Fuji” is one of the candidates for this year’s “Buzzword of the Year."

Reflecting on the national attention the black sheet focused on his town, Watanabe said, “Rather than a negative image, we would like to continue transmitting and playing up our location in a way that will lead to (tourism promotion).”

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