Overseas Residents’ visits to Japan decline by 2.2 % in August

According to Japan National Tourism Organisation (JNTO), the estimated number of international travellers to Japan in August 2019 registered 2.5 million with a decline of 2.2% compared to the previous year. This is the first time a decline has been recorded since last September when the typhoon and the earthquake in Hokkaido had a great impact on the tourism.

JTB Tourism Research & Consulting Co. has recently released its Data Analysis on Japanese Inbound Tourism Trends (issued in July 2019, a report describing the latest trends pertaining to inbound travel to Japan.

 The Report presents a summary of the current status and future prospects for travel to Japan from six major markets (China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, and the Western market), and how these affect eight regions in Japan (Hokkaido, Tohoku, Kanto, Chubu, Kinki, Chugoku/Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa).

By market, China accounted for about 1 million people (+16.3% from the previous year), together with Taiwan (0.4 million tourists, +6.5%), recorded the highest figure for August. The western markets increased compared to to the previous year.

However, affected by the relation between South Korea and Japan, the number of visitors from South Korea decreased dramatically by 48% to 0.3 million, which resulted in the decrease of the total number of international travellers to Japan.