Blame tourist for all your countries problems
Refuse tourist into many Izakayas for decades
Fail to capture the tourist market for decades
Prices rise and force out much of the native population
Try to pivot to the same tourist you told to GTFO and never marketed to
???
FORECLOSURE!
Literal pottery.
Not a smart marketing decision to gatekeep Izakayas from people with money. Many tourist out earn even the most skilled of salarymen by a wide margin. Not marketing to this group has been a massive mistake, foolish.
Are izakaya the bars with all the really good fried stuff and cheap beer? I was in Japan for business and we spent an evening at one such bar and it was an amazing experience.
And yeah I’ve never gotten to go for pleasure, but spending a week in a smaller part of the country really made me want to go back and get to see more of it.