Japan and Foreign Visitors: Updated September 25, 2024.

 

Number of foreign visitors to Japan tops 2.9 mil., record for August

Article https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240918/p2g/00m/0na/050000c

Ideas:

Japan is seeing record numbers of foreign visitors but it has a way to go before it has the same number as Spain of France. 

But to be fair, location might be a challenge, even with improve travel as Spain and France have a big advantage related to location.

Yes, China and the rest of Asia of Asia has a huge population, but there might be travel limitations for some.

There might be some political issue between China and Japan which might be limiting some Chinese travelers as they were the largest group to travel to Japan in 2019 before the pandemic.

It looks like China has regained the top spot for foreign travelers to Japan, as they might have resolved any flight challenges which was affecting travel to Japan.

And regarding the political issues, it seems Chinese travelers have forgotten about the Chinese ban of Japanese seafood imports, as most likely many/most Chinese are eating Japanese seafood in Japan now.

South Korea is a another country with some historical issues with Japan, but it seems like the weak Japanese yen is enough to persuade many South Korean tourists to travel to Japan.

Some might say, in Japan, there are now too many foreign visitors, but tell that to the hotels, restaurants, and other places that lost a lot during the pandemic when Japan was closed off during the pandemic.

The weak Japanese yen has of course been a challenge for Japanese travelers has they have to fight inflation  and also weak Japanese yen when they travel overseas.

Gone are the days, maybe, when hordes of Japanese would travel to Hawaii and other places in the 80's and 90's.

Japan has always been on the side of caution, and sometimes maybe too much, but better safe than something else.

And also it might be because of the 3/11 Fukushima earthquake and tsunami that Japan has become even more cautious and maybe for good reasons.

All of the cancellations because of the quake warning should be enough to remember what happened during the pandemic when the country was closed off and many businesses went out of business and it took many months for the economy to get back to some kind of normalcy. 

Have a nice day!