Chinese visits to Japan have fallen for 10 straight months, while the number of South Korean travelers has risen sharply. Fewer foreign tourists visited Japan this year than last, yet their spending in the country reached a record high.
Chinese Arrivals Plunge 55.5% Amid Japan-China Tensions
A total of 30,730,200 foreign visitors traveled to Japan in the January-September period, down 2.9% from a year earlier, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) on the 21st.
Analysts attribute the decline to the diplomatic rift with China. Relations cooled sharply after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested in November last year that Tokyo could intervene in a Taiwan contingency. Chinese travel to Japan contracted significantly as a result.
Chinese visitors in the first nine months of the year fell 55.5% from the same period a year earlier. If the decline persists, annual arrivals are unlikely to surpass the record 42.68 million set last year, some forecasts suggest.
If the trend holds, it would mark the first annual drop in foreign arrivals to Japan in five years, since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Korean Arrivals Surge to 842,300 in September, a Monthly Record
Foreign arrivals also declined last month. September visitors totaled 3,103,700, down 5.0% from a year earlier and marking a second straight monthly decline.
Chinese visitors numbered 430,800, a 44.5% plunge from the same month last year. Arrivals from China have now fallen for 10 consecutive months.
South Korean travelers, by contrast, rose markedly. A total of 842,300 Koreans visited Japan last month, up 25.6% from a year earlier. That was the largest figure among all countries and regions and a record high for the month of September.
Taiwanese visitors followed at 595,600, up 13.0%.
Seven countries and regions, including South Korea and Taiwan, posted all-time high arrivals in Japan in September.
Spending Hits Record Even as Arrivals Fall, Helped by Weak Yen
Japan's tourism consumption market grew despite the drop in foreign visitors. Spending by foreign travelers in Japan reached 7.0574 trillion yen (about 59.0865 trillion won) in the first nine months of the year, up 1.9% from a year earlier and a record high.
In other words, overall tourism spending rose even as the number of foreign visitors fell.
The weak yen is seen as a factor behind the trend. Lower relative costs for travel and shopping are believed to have encouraged foreign visitors to spend more while in the country.
Even with Chinese arrivals continuing to fall, rising demand from South Korea, Taiwan and other markets expanded the scale of spending in Japan's tourism market.