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Kyoto drops out of the top 10 in annual survey<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Every year, Japanese travel booking agency Jalan<\/strong>, through its Jalan Research Center<\/strong>, conducts a survey among Japanese domestic travelers, asking them which prefecture of Japan they visited on their trip and how satisfied they were. The results for the most recent iteration of the survey, collecting data from 15,586 people who traveled domestically in Japan between April of 2024 and March of 2025, has been released, and it contains a big surprise at the top of its rankings.<\/p>\n When asked to rate, overall, how satisfied they were with their trip, the top ranking went not to Kyoto, Hokkaido, or Okinawa, but to humble Kagawa Prefecture<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Comprising the northeastern tip of the island of Shikoku<\/strong>, Kagawa is Japan\u2019s smallest prefecture in terms of land area, and 39th (out of 47) in population. It\u2019s not a glitzy, fancy, or trendy place, and as further proof of its ordinarily under-the-radar status, when Jalan\u2019s survey asked travelers for feedback in nine specific categories regarding things like high-quality hotels pampering hospitality, Kagawa only made the top 10 for two of them, 7th place for delicious local food and 8th for fun places for kids.<\/p>\n And yet, when asked to rate their overall satisfaction for their trip on a scale of 1 to 5, Kagawa had the highest percentage of 4s and 5s, with 91.3 percent of respondents giving the prefecture a perfect or near-perfect score<\/strong>, more than second-place Okinawa (89.4 percent) and third-place Nagasaki (88.9 percent).<\/p>\n That combination of average rankings in individual categories but sitting at the top of overall satisfaction is unexpected, but Jalan Research Center\u2019s chief researcher Kanako Morito has some theories. Starting with Kagawa\u2019s highly ranked food, the prefecture\u2019s representative dish is udon noodles<\/strong><\/a>. While you can find udon across Japan, the tastiest udon is widely thought to be found in Kagawa. Udon restaurants are everywhere in the prefecture, often open from early in the morning and stocked with racks of freshly made tempura that customers serve themselves using tongs.<\/p>\n \u25bc A bowl of Kagawa udon<\/p>\n Udon is something that just about everyone, from little kids to senior citizens, likes, so a prefecture where the quality is a step up from the norm is going to consistently make travelers happy. Udon is also a very affordable dish, so it isn\u2019t followed by the unpleasant aftertaste of the hefty bill that other famous regional foods, such as Kobe beef or Hokkaido crab, sometimes involve.<\/p>\n Speaking of expenses, while travel and tourism-related prices are going up in Kagawa, just as they are everywhere in the country, the prefecture tends to be a less pricy option than many others<\/strong>. In Jalan\u2019s survey, the average per-person expenditure per domestic trip was 64,100 yen (around US$430), while for travelers to Kagawa, it was just 51,400 yen.<\/p>\n Of course, low prices don\u2019t make a destination a good value without there also being fun and interesting things to see and do. Morito thinks travelers have come away happy from their trips to Kagawa because they enjoy the glimpse they get of the prefecture\u2019s relaxed lifestyle. Places like the Pok\u00e9mon Slowpoke park<\/a> notwithstanding, a lot of Kagawa\u2019s attractions, like Ritsurin Koen garden, Marugame Castle<\/a>, and demon island Megijima<\/a><\/strong> offer glimpses of traditional culture that are outside the standard set of Japan\u2019s most famous historical sightseeing attractions, giving Kagawa an off-the-beaten-path appeal.<\/p>\n \u25bc The view from the top of Megijima (not pictured: demons)<\/p>\n There might also be a bit of a geographic factor at play, though it\u2019s not something Morito herself expressed. Being the northeast corner of Shikoku, Kagawa is the most easily accessible part of the island for travelers coming from the most populous parts of Japan\u2019s central Kansai region, such as Kobe and Osaka, and also for people coming from east Japan and Tokyo. It\u2019s possible that part of Kagawa\u2019s rise in Jalan\u2019s rankings is a result of Japanese domestic travelers seeing it as a more satisfying destination than another prefecture ordinarily known for its tranquil atmosphere and traditional charms: Kyoto<\/strong>. In the previous survey, Kyoto ranked seventh in overall domestic traveler satisfaction, which actually feels a little low, given how it\u2019s been one of the most popular travel destinations pretty much ever since people in Japan first became able to travel for pleasure. In the newest survey, though, Kyoto didn\u2019t even make the top 10 in overall traveler satisfaction, reflecting a growing perception that, at least for now, Kyoto City has become so expensive and crowded with inbound foreign tourists that it\u2019s not as enjoyable for Japanese people to visit as it used to be<\/a>.<\/p>\n As such, it\u2019s hard to say if Kagawa is going to become a regular atop Jalan\u2019s rankings, or if it\u2019s just enjoying a moment of boosted popularity as an easy-to-access alternative as current conditions make many of Japan\u2019s most famous destinations a little less enjoyable for Japanese travelers these days. Either way though, those who did pick Kagawa for a trip recently have been very happy they did.<\/p>\n Source: Jalan Research Center<\/a>, KSB<\/a> via Yahoo! Japan News<\/a> via Jin<\/a><\/em> Kyoto drops out of the top 10 in annual survey. Every year, Japanese travel booking agency Jalan, through its Jalan Research Center, conducts a survey among Japanese domestic travelers, asking…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1971\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/09\/kr-2.jpg?w=640\")
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