Overseas tourists are changing the face of Japan

Visitors tame a rough Osaka neighborhood and breathe new life into ski resorts

20190826 Inbound Shinsaibashi Getty 1.jpg

Overseas tourists are changing the look of Osaka's Shinsaibashi-suji shopping street, where drugstore chains, encouraged by strong sales, have opened dozens of shops. © Getty Images

TEIICHI MIYAUCHI, Nikkei senior staff writer

September 8, 2019 14:08 JST

OSAKA -- As international travelers flood into Japan, the face of Airin, a working-class district in Osaka, is changing.

Airin was long known as a town of day laborers who eked out a living doing odd jobs and stayed in flop houses. But as the decades passed, the business of offering cheap daily lodging grew more precarious as the local population aged.