Holidaymakers to boost spending as Japan growth at tipping point

Sounds like another LDP puff piece.

It's hard to expect a sharp increase in consumption from there, unless wage growth accelerates," said Toru Suehiro, chief economist at Daiwa Securities.

The last quote invalidates the whole proposition of the article, as that sure is not going to happen with Japan Inc. pulling the LDP strings.

Tourism is a great example of an industry where the vast proportion of the gains go to the owners of the infrastructure and a tiny bit to workers.

Some 72.6 percent of companies in the hotel industry said they do not have enough full-time workers, much higher than the 51.4 percent for all sectors.

Workers may be played for fools by the Japan Inc./LDP combine but they are not stupid.

Why was the comments thread about N. Korean abductions summit closed after only 17 comments?

manipulating gone wrong.

Now I get it 17 abducted so 17 comments?

noticed 4 were from the same dud supporting this nonsense.

They already have ramped up their spending say hello to inflation????

72.6 percent of companies in the hotel industry said they do not have enough full-time workers,

The govt is pushing an industry that is notorious for its low wages and for which there aren't nearly enough workers. Great policy there, folks.

Japan is ill equipped to handle millions of bag pushing and carrying tourists.

Stations do not have large elevators capable of tackling platform to street level passenger traffic nor can they accommodate waiting passengers easily.

When the Chinese start coming back en masse then the chaos will just get worse

With the lifting of all restrictions and the weak yen, there is no universe in which this is not good economic news.

Some people would whine a out some imagined issue if they won the lottery.

Japanese people plan to spend an average 68,632 yen 

You won't go far expending that. It really means that only 1 out of 3 go on holidays.

an average bonus of 903,397 yen

Yeah, right.

Still in recovery from Covid, so this is releasing of pent-up demand.

Every year in Japan, the official working age population of 15-64 shrinks by a lot, I think its close to a million. Many work beyond 60 and beyond 65, but they'll be on reduced salaries. If the working age population of people on decent money is falling, the expectation should be for consumption to fall. It's certainly not going to increase significantly in real terms, unless some Covid-like black swan creating temporary pent up demand happens again.

It’s school holiday time.

I watched an interview on TV. It was a Japanese guy with his wife and two children at an airport. They asked him “where are you and your family going for Obon and how much did it cost?”. He replied that they were going to Australia for 5 days and it was costing him ¥350000. He also said that he didn’t have the money for this trip, but his wife insisted they go anyway. Is this the new norm?

Is this what Japan has come to?

Relying on tourism for their economy?

Hardly worthy of a G7 member.

Let me guess, you either literally just started reading about the Japanese economy yesterday, or you've had your head in the sand for the past decade or so.

Which is it?

 were going to Australia for 5 days and it was costing him ¥350,000

Me thinks you are missing a zero at the end here. I HIGHLY doubt that he is going to Australia for 5 days, and only spending ￥87,500 per person.

@Zoroto

There is no other avenue of growth in Japan. 

Yep, the world's biggest maker of industrial robots, automobiles, semiconductor machine tools, and so on and so on has so little potential. The only solution to this is expanding a stingy minimum-wage service industry amid a severe labor shortage. Well, that idea certainly deserves the Nobel Prize for Economics.

Some people still write nonsense, but Japan's tourism industry accounts for 2% of GDP, compared to 4% on average for other G7 countries.

Are you saying that countries other than Japan that rely on tourism are not fit for the G7?

Should we go back to the US/UK/France/Germany/Japan G5? Japan's economic power is about that scale.

The correct data is properly issued by the Japanese government, so it is better not to write inappropriate things.

Because they do not properly check the data and facts, they are easily deceived by Chinese and Korean propaganda that Japan was cruel.