Over 10 million foreign tourists to Japan thanks to simplified visa and weak yen

Except for China PRC due to political tensions with Japan, all other inbound markets to Japan rose compared to 2012. The dream target of having 10 million foreign travellers has been finally reached, although Japanese authorities had originally planned to reach that number back to 2010…

BANGKOK/TOKYO – Japan tourism is doing well, extremely well. Last year marked a record for the tourism industry with a growth of 24% a performance unseen now for many years. Japan received 10.36 million international visitors, a number sustained by double-digit growth rates for most markets.

According to the preliminary data from the JNTO, all countries reached a new peak. The combination of a weakening Yen (it now stands at 102 to 104 Yen on average for one dollar compared to less than 78 Yen in mid 2011). This stimulated particularly Western markets: US arrivals went up by 11.5% while from Europe, French arrivals to Japan grew by over 18% while the UK and Germany progressed by over 10%.

While traditional inbound markets such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea showed healthy progression comprised between 20% and 50%, the most spectacular growth rates were registered from Southeast Asia, where a visa exemption agreement adopted in late summer started to show its positive effect. Thailand total number of travellers to Japan is up by 74% and from Malaysia by 35.6%. But also Vietnam and Indonesia showed growth rates over the average of respectively of 53% and 34%.

By the end of the year, however, the Korean market started to show signs of a marked slowdown and even decline as coverage about the influence of the nuclear accident of 2011 in the Sendai/Fukushima region. For 2014, Japanese authorities are confident that the country could welcome over 11 million foreign travellers.

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Luc Citrinot

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Luc Citrinot a French national is a freelance journalist and consultant in tourism and air transport with over 20 years experience. Based in Paris and Bangkok, he works for various travel and air transport trade publications in Europe and Asia.