Food Tours Japan

Eat, Drink & Cook in Japan

Disclosure

Last updated: November 2025

We want our customers to know we’re transparent about how Food Tours Japan works. The purpose of this disclosure is to provide you with a clear understanding of how the site operates.

This disclosure covers:

  • Commercial: How This Site Makes Money
  • Editorial: How We Choose What to Feature
  • AI: How We Use and Do Not Use AI Tools
  • Conflicts of Interest: There Are None
  • Why I Wrote This Disclosure

Commercial: How This Site Makes Money

Here’s how Food Tours Japan currently earns revenue.

Affiliate partner links

Some of the outbound links on Food Tours Japan are affiliate partner links. If you click on one of these links and go on to make a purchase, we may (or may not) earn a small commission at no cost to you.

Earning commissions from our partners helps us cover the costs of running the website. Some of our expenses include:

  • Writing – researching, editing, and writing
  • Photography and videos – taking photos and videos, and editing
  • Website management – publishing new articles and keeping them up to date
  • Travel – travel to and within Japan, such as flights, trains, hire cars, buses and taxis
  • Experiences – food and drink experiences we pay for, including those we promote and for research
  • Infrastructure and software – website hosting, software and other operational costs
  • People – salary and sub-contractor costs

Our editorial and commercial policy is completely independent. We never allow our partners to influence the content we produce, recommend or feature.

This ensures that our recommendations are always based on their merit and relevance to our readers.

Our own products and services

We also earn income from our own products and services, which include ebooks and travel consultancy.

Editorial: How we choose what to feature

We have a 100% independent, free editorial policy.

All recommendations on this website are from:

  • Personal experience – I lived in Japan (Osaka and Nara ) for 10 years until 2024, and now travel there 2-3 months a year
  • In-depth research – I’ve travelled in Japan for over 18 months, and spent a great deal of time researching food and drink experiences and travel
  • Clear understanding of travellers’ needs – my Japanese wife and I understand what travellers need in Japan, and how Food Tours Japan can assist them

None of our partners can buy a positive review, mention, ranking or placement on the site.

I only recommend products, tours, and services that will be helpful to readers, not because someone paid me to push them higher.

Any food or drink experience I’ve undertaken, whether I’ve paid for it or been gifted it by a partner, will be clearly stated.

Recommendations, reviews and opinions

At Food Tours Japan, our goal is to provide authentic and genuinely helpful content based on my personal experiences.

We are not just another spam website with generic suggestions and AI-generated content.

Our content reflects real experiences, direct knowledge, and reliable information from trusted sources.

Editorial process

Here’s how the editorial process works:

  • All of the website’s written content is based on real experiences, direct knowledge, or reliable information from trusted sources
  • I research, fact-check and write everything myself
  • We never copy content from other websites or use AI to remix other websites’ copy
  • We may have short customer reviews on our website, which we’ve used with permission from our partners
  • No partner gets to review or edit what I write
    All images, photos and videos on the website are originals I’ve taken, stock photography, creative commons, or from partner websites

We review each article every 3-6 months to ensure accuracy and keep it up to date.

Sponsored content, press trips and gift experiences

We don’t accept any sponsored content or requests for outbound links.

We don’t do any press trips for media outlets. We will clearly disclose if we do in the future.

We do accept some gift experiences from our partners, which we disclose. Even when gifted opportunities occur, opinions remain independent and honest.

If a company provides us with something, you’ll know about it.

AI: How We Use and Do Not Use AI Tools

A human creates all of the written content and edits on Food Tours Japan, including me, Chris P King.

I plan, write, edit, publish, and review all articles on the website based on my own experiences and research.

We don’t use AI tools for:

  • writing articles
  • summarising, rewriting or remixing other articles
  • creating automated content
  • fabricating or making up reviews or recommendations
  • creating images, photography or videos

That said, we will be reducing stock photography, as it’s increasingly difficult to tell whether AI generates images.

We do use AI for:

  • grammar recommendations, let’s face it, who likes grammar!
  • technical troubleshooting, such as how to fix and improve things on the website
  • idea clarification, like a research assistant
  • translation of Japanese documents and articles
  • plagiarism and AI detection

And very occasionally, we do use AI tools for:

  • written sentence improvements
  • editing original photos

Everything on the website reflects human ideas, opinions, perspectives and effort.

Conflicts of Interest: There Are None

In brief, there are no conflicts of interest. Food Torus Japan does not:

  • accept payments from partners to influence our opinions or editorial stance
  • promote partners in exchange for payments or any favourable treatment
  • accept any requests for guest posts and links

Why I Wrote This Disclosure

As I’ve said above, Food Tours Japan is based on my personal food, drink, and travel experiences in Japan, as well as my in-depth research and effort. You can find out more about me here.

Japan travel planning is full of noise, increasingly from people with no or minimal experience, and AI-generated spam.

I want my readers to know exactly how Food Tours Japan works, including how I create content and what influences it (or rather, doesn’t influence it).

At Food Tours Japan, we believe trust is built on openness and transparency. This disclosure is a testament to our commitment to providing you with transparent and honest information about how we operate.

We are always here to address any questions or concerns you may have. If you have any questions about this or anything else, or if you have feedback or suggestions about how we can improve, please feel free to contact us here.

Chris P King – Food Tours Japan