Japan Foreign Visitors: Updated Feb. 20, 2026.

Japan's Jan. foreign visitors dip amid China spat, 1st fall in 4 years

Article source: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20260218/p2g/00m/0bu/041000c

Ideas

Whether good or not so good, the powers to be in Japan just can't seem to stop doing things that the Chinese powers to be dislike. They take one step forward and ten steps back every few years.

Chinese foreign visitors to Japan used to be Japan's largest foreign tourist group, at least before the pandemic, but since then its been more of a hit and miss situation with China and visitors from that country.

If there were 3.6 million visitors in January that is still a significant number of tourists entering Japan staying at Japanese hotels, buying things as Japanese department stores and convenience stores, and of course going to a lot of touristy places spending money in Japan.

Some might say, and its a small group, who really don't want foreign tourists in Japan or any foreigners at all and especially they want new measures to reduce the over-crowding in some places like Kyoto in the Osaka area that has become a major tourist spot for foreign tourists recently.

Ever since the pandemic or just after the pandemic, flights from China has been very slow to return to the pre 2019 level when there seemed to be an explosion of flights coming and going to and from mainland China.

It seems, as the weather in Thailand is much warmer than what it is now in Japan, that Thailand is not the number one Lunar New Year holiday destination for many Chinese tourists now.

Some might say, again, that the decrease in Chinese tourists to Japan might be a positive as it might reduce the over-crowding and might actually calm down the noise by some who are against anything foreign in Japan, but its too early to tell just yet.

Even though the Chinese powers to be suggested Chinese tourists should not go to Japan, 367,000 people still went to Japan which is still a significant number of Chinese tourists spending money in Japan.

And again, yes the Japanese powers to be keep making remarks that the Chinese powers to be dislike again which again causes un-needed friction between the two countries.

As this blog rarely says anything negative about the Japanese powers to be, it seems the new Prime Minister in Japan is more head-strong or more stubborn than previous Prime Ministers and probably won't change much of what was said back in November.

Snow sports tourism seems to be the latest trend for tourists going to Japan as other than Mongolia or China there really isn't much in the way of snow sports tourism in Asia. Even South Korea's snow tourism areas are not really that well developed compared to Japan's snow tourism areas.

At the same time, despite the demand for snow sports tourism, there are probably just as many foreign tourists who might not care much about the snow sports and just want to experience some things in Japan that might might not be able to do or see in their home country.

It used to be, at least before the pandemic, that getting a ticket from Seoul Gimpo airport to Tokyo Haneda airport was very easy but after the pandemic ended and Japan re-opened its borders in 2023 getting a ticket became much more difficult and it seems everyone and anyone in South Korea suddenly wanted to go to Japan, and probably globally too, airline ticket prices almost tripled or seemed that way.

Taiwan, even though it suffered significantly from the Japan occupation, there doesn't seem to be that much if any negative noise about it as they either have let by gones be by gones or just moved on in life and tourists from Taiwan seems to be very robust and the relations between the two countries seems very stable.

Ticket prices between Japan and Australia are probably not cheap and the same can be said for ticket prices between the US and Japan, but people want to travel so they are going to travel even though airline ticket prices have increased significantly since the pandemic.

Have a nice day!