In 2007 Tokyo's restaurants were awarded with the most stars and in 2010 other Japanese cities like Kyoto and Osaka also received many stars. At the time this sparked questions from some over whether these high ratings were merited for Japanese restaurants, or whether the Michelin guide was too generous in giving out stars to gain an acceptance with Japanese customers and to enable the parent tyre-selling company to market itself in Japan. But the discrepancy is easily explained by the number of restaurants in total: Tokyo has 160,000 restaurants while Paris for example has just 40,000. "The Wall Street Journal" reported in 2010 that some Japanese chefs were surprised at receiving a star, and were reluctant to accept one, because the publicity caused an unmanageable jump in booking, affecting their ability to serve their traditional customers without lowering their quality.