The estimated number of foreigners who visited Japan decreased from pre-quake levels for the fourth consecutive month in October, the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) said on Nov. 16.
The estimated number of foreigners who visited Japan decreased from pre-quake levels for the fourth consecutive month in October, the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) said on Nov. 16.The figure for October, which includes sightseeing and business trips, stood at 706,100, down 2.9 percent from the same month in 2010, which was five months before the Great East Japan Earthquake. The decrease in the number of visitors from China (excluding Hong Kong) was especially conspicuous—at 33.2 percent, it said.There is a large possibility that the total number of foreigners who visit Japan in all of 2012 will be smaller than in the pre-quake year, it added.By countries or regions, South Korea marked the largest number of visitors to Japan at 168,200 in October this year. However, this figure, too, is a decrease, down 13.2 percent from the pre-quake level.The decline is apparently attributable to continuing anxieties over the possible effects from the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant and to the higher appreciation of the yen against the South Korean won.On the other hand, the numbers of visitors from Taiwan and Southeast Asian countries increased compared to pre-quake levels.This year, the government is aiming to increase the number of foreign visitors to Japan to 9 million, which is larger than the current record of 8.61 million marked in 2010.However, Norifumi Ide, commissioner of the government's Japan Tourism Agency, which supervises JNTO, was not optimistic."Now it is extremely difficult to achieve that target," Ide said in a news conference on Nov. 16.The number of Chinese visitors to Japan has drastically decreased since mid-September as Japan-China relations have deteriorated due to the dispute over the Senkaku Islands. Much of the decrease was caused by the decline in the number of group tours, and the 33.2-percent decrease in October was larger than the roughly 10-percent drop in September.The number of Chinese visitors to Japan in the pre-quake month of October 2010 also marked a 1.9-percent decline from the same month of 2009, apparently due to an incident in which a Chinese fishing vessel rammed Japan Coast Guard vessels off Senkaku Islands in September 2010. However, this latest decline is much larger.A major airline said that one sign of recovery can be seen in the numbers of foreign businessmen and individuals who visit Japan. As for the number of visitors who come to Japan in group tours, however, the Japan Tourism Agency says that it is not recovering in November, either.