Foreign visitors to Japan top 3 mil in July; single-month record

I wish there were less, especially around where I live, it’s like a plague of locusts at times, lol

Well, if they behaved properly it wouldn’t be so bad would it? Too many of them standing about blocking the way making ruddy videos for social media etc.

I find Chinese and American tourists to be the worst on the whole, too loud and seemingly unaware that shouting instead of talking isn’t the norm and don’t get me started on those thugs that walk around talking on phones on speaker.

A notable number of travelers also came from the Philippines at 55,500, up 7.3 percent from the previous year, and from Thailand at 53,500, up 7.8 percent, data showed.

How the turntables in Asia.

All the vast majority of Japanese see from this tourist bonanza are minimum wage service jobs and news stories about the hordes of troublesome foreign tourists.

Some people are benefiting, and it is not your average Taro or Kimiko.

Japan one of developed nations now depend their economy on tourism just like emerging economy, well done.

That's 3.3 million very sweaty foreigners.

I find Chinese and American tourists to be the worst on the whole.

Yep. The Yanks are obnoxious tourists for sure.

Visitor numbers from 19 countries and regions including South Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan also hit a record high for July, according to data.

In addition, these formerly less economically-advantaged compared to Japan Asian neighbors have long had their own tourism dependent sectors.

But there the service workers cannily bargained for slightly higher prices to foreign tourists, or got paid in stronger foreign currencies, or got tips; and could use the tourist business to lift themselves up.

Japanese tourism is a highly regressive economic phenomenon, benefiting only significant capital holders.

Someone please guide them to the countryside, where they are wanted and not just the same old tourist traps, were the locals are getting fed up.

we can do this

Someone please guide them to the countryside, where they are wanted and not just the same old tourist traps, were the locals are getting fed up.

we can do this

It would be fantastic to see many more foreign tourists in rural parts of Japan. Kyushu, Shikoku, Hokkaido and Tohoku would be ideal. You'd imagine repeat visitors will start looking outside the usual Tokyo-Osaka-Kyoto areas in coming years.

The surge in visitors, though, has left Japan, which aims to lure an annual 60 million foreign visitors by 2030, 

Can Japan overtake France as the most visited nation on earth? Do not bet against the draw of Japan!

Obladi

Yeah, ship em to the sticks, would make me happy for sure.

Maybe time for the Japanese government to rush Chinese foreign language teachers into Japanese schools asap?

Millions of Chinese need to be serviced…

Someone please guide them to the countryside, where they are wanted and not just the same old tourist traps, were the locals are getting fed up.

It would be fantastic to see many more foreign tourists in rural parts of Japan. Kyushu, Shikoku, Hokkaido and Tohoku would be ideal. You'd imagine repeat visitors will start looking outside the usual Tokyo-Osaka-Kyoto areas in coming years.

Yeah, so long as they do not come to Ibaraki. It’s nice and quiet here; it is after all why I live here.

Very good information for the promotion of tourism and the Japanese economy.

Tourists, just follow the rules and have a good time..

Maybe time for the Japanese government to rush Chinese foreign language teachers into Japanese schools asap?

Millions of Chinese need to be serviced…

China, Europe, Latinamerica, Asia, Canada, US...

Everybody is welcomed..

Japan one of developed nations now depend their economy on tourism just like emerging economy, well done.

Just as Europe, the US, and the rest of the world depend on tourism, we are a global village..

Leave your childish hate for another post..

TokyoLiving

A “a global village” = No culture.

The very reason the western tourists come to Japan is because their own cultures have been flooded with migrating peoples and therefore have lost any identifiable culture. Witness: USA, UK, Canada etc. They are interested in Japan because it is all “Japanese” and therefore has an obviously unique culture.

That’s why they come to Japan. But they don’t even realize it!

Yeah, thanks for the airfares, dudes.

It would be fantastic to see many more foreign tourists in rural parts of Japan. Kyushu, Shikoku, Hokkaido and Tohoku would be ideal.

Yes, fantastic, but for us residents, better they stay on the main tracks so we can relax during our vacation in the remote rural areas where a car is needed to travel around.

Yep. The Yanks are obnoxious tourists for sure.

I'm going to France in a few weeks. A 'seasoned' France traveler told me not to give myself away as just another annoying American tourist by wearing a baseball cap. Apparently that's a stereotype they like to get their noses in a snit about.

I said "Thanks for telling me, I'm gonna wear a baseball cap everyday there now".

It also made me consider going to Walmart to buy some of those shirts that say "LAND OF THE FREE" with American flags and bald eagles or Harleys on it. "GOD, GUNS, AND FAMILY" might work well, too.

Japan needs to increase the departure tax at airports and use the revenue to improve infrastructure in areas hit hard by over tourism. By world standards, the ¥1,000 ($6.88 USD) is very, very low. My home country charges ¥5,800. Doubling or tripling the tax would generate a huge amount of revenue but would still be so low that tourists will not be put off by it. The government are leaving so much money on the table. Any leftover revenue could be funneled into increasing aged care services.

> The number of foreign visitors to Japan totaled 3.29 million in July, up 41.9 percent from a year earlier and hitting a record high for a single month, boosted by the weak yen, government data showed Wednesday.

This is called “pushing the agenda”. I am pretty confident “goverment data” does not show “boosted by the weak yen”, that is useless addition in the sentence.

I’ve seen many of the Chinese (I know they are because of their dialect. They aren’t Taiwanese) and they are some of the most disrespectful tourist I’ve seen. The flock together ignoring traffic conditions and park their bodies on the sidewalk with no where to run. I was in Shabu yo the other day and maybe 80 of them came in at one time and the amount of food they left on their tables was amazing. They horded all. Suspect most of these tourist just are in budget tours and spend very little mom and pop shops which are the ones who really effect th economy. It’s not the numbers. It’s the quality.

tourists are welcomed, they are nice and always smiling. but for china visitors, can you please queue, dont shout, no pushing, dont speak your own language to Japanese over and over although you know they dont understand it, dont squeeze the food, dont touch everything in front of you, and behave yourself. Please respect others people culture

Some foreigners living in Japan and other foreigners who fancy a lot about Japan from their home countries are complaining about lots of foreigners visiting Japan. Japan is not even in Top 10 most visited country based on 2023 numbers.

Masked in the height of summer four and one half years into the plandemic. Lord have mercy.

French tourist figures are something like 70 million per year. You never hear whining about it from the French.

Glad to see that Japan is a popular tourist destination. But sometimes it seems like they are all here in Shinjuku!

I wonder how clean that onsen water is.

3 mil in July; single-month record

Japanese forget they are an island nation, not a continent. That's a lot of tourists.

Good for the economy, but many of them are rude and disrespectful.

That's what you get for having the weakest currency from all of the developed nations.

The problem is that for the locals, just like me, it's near impossible to find good cheap hotels anymore, everywhere is overly crowded, Shinkansens are always at full capacity, huge crowds at restaurants, etc.

Having a nice summer holiday in Japan costs more than double compared to a couple of years ago.

Taiwan ranked third at 571,700, up 35.4 percent from the same period last year,

That works out at nearly 7 million a year. Taiwan's population is around 24 million, so that is 30% of the population. Or more sensibly, it means a smaller number of Taiwanese are coming multiple times a year.

If people are coming multiple times a year, they will not be going to Kiyomizudera every time. A large number of them must already be going "to the countryside".

For SK, 757,000 a month would be 9 million a year, out of a population of 51.6 million. This again points to repeaters who will already be seeking out different destinations. It strikes me as incorrect to claim that tourism to Japan is 40 million people going to Kyoto and nowhere else. Kyoto may be too poorly organised to handle the numbers it gets without tensions being created, but that does not mean nobody is going anywhere else.

The other issue these number raises is how much potential for further expansion remains when 30% of Taiwan and 20% of SK are already coming? Yes its racist, but does Japan want another 20 million of mainly low-value mainland Chinese to come? All of the rich ones are already coming, so expansion means moving down the food chain.

Clean, safe, good cuisine, lots to see and with the yen in gutter ( granted a little better today than last month) Japan in 2024 is an absolute bargain. I hear people saying they can eat more cheaply in a mid range restaurant here than in Thailand.

The surge in visitors, though, has left Japan, which aims to lure an annual 60 million foreign visitors by 2030, facing a host of challenges,

60 million per year target. Heck, sure hope not, it has become a crowded nightmare in most tourist places already.

Masked in the height of summer four and one half years into the plandemic. Lord have mercy.

The caption doesn’t say when the photo was taken.

Good for the Japan economy because tourists just dump money into Japan and don't take anything out of the economy. The not so good, tons more tourists. Lol.

Good for the economy, but many of them are rude and disrespectful.

How many of them and in what ways are they rude and disrespectful?

As for Chinese tourists, I thought they might be ragged on in this comment section, though my experiences with them here have been generally okay. One group I met while waiting in a restaurant offered to buy me dinner after I helped them order.

but for china visitors, can you please queue, dont shout, no pushing, dont speak your own language to Japanese over and over although you know they dont understand it, dont squeeze the food, dont touch everything in front of you, and behave yourself

I’m sure you can spell “Chinese”. Other than the language, you might have been describing the behavior of some geriatric locals I’ve witnessed.

... I can pass for tourist to be walking at snail pase on a busy weekday in the middle of the road. I also understand that tourist can get lost or confused and stop in suddenly to find out where they are. Also, understand the incontrolable urge to take a picture of something suddenly stopping in the middle of the road.

And the talking, also, specially if they came with their family and/or fiends, exictment and the sense of "new" will make you talkative and forget your voice volume....

The only thing I cannot bare is the B.O.... I know it is summer and sweaty, but use diodorant please... or take at least use those wet wipes that they sell in any combini or pharmacy.... just yesterday I had to share a train with around 15 teenagers (French girls and boys) and really i could not breath.....

We got plenty smelly people with some drunken ossans and over perfumated women and the occassional rancid dudes (usually homeless)...

2.1 million out of the 3.3 million come from China, SK, or Taiwan.

None of those currencies have greatly appeciated vs. the Japanese yen in the post Covid era. The expression "weak yen" is generally used to refer to the yen falling against the USD since 2022. Hence the "weak yen" is not much of a factor for most (2.1 out 3.3 million) people being talked about here who are not paid in USD. Prices in Japan are no lower for them now than they were two years ago.

The factor this article and articles like it never mention is the increasing number of cheap flights on low cost carriers between Japan and nearly Asian countries. For the price of riding the Shinkansen to Osaka, you can fly from Tokyo to Seoul. Osaka is a fine city, but it is not as interesting to a person from Tokyo as Seoul. Likewise, if like half of SK, you live in or near Seoul, you might as well fly to Japan than have a short break in Pusan or other part of SK. The transport cost will be the same. The tragic-to-me angle in this is that even though relatively cheap flights have finally become available for Japanese people, many cannot afford to travel any more or have dwindling interest in going overseas.

Flying to Europe at present is (much) more expensive than normal due to the Ukraine conflict and flights not passing over Russia. I suspect the vast investments in building Kansai and Chubu International airports was not planned just so it could satisfy cheapo flights from China, Korea, and Taiwan, but such demand may well have saved those airports from becoming the white elephants they looked like becoming ten years ago. Many European national carriers stopped flying to Kansai and Chubu years ago.

Goodness me.....All of the people complaining. Ridiculous. It's not that bad. If you don't like it....move!!

You'll enjoy it.

If you insist! And I did too, thanks.

My team recently took a European family on an 8 day tour of Japan. It was their third time, and they wanted to revisit some of the spots they went to on their first trip (Kyoto, Hiroshima, Nara etc.). I suggested an alternative schedule where they don't go anywhere near a sweltering major city or tourist trap.

They were initially reluctant but I promised them a 50% refund if it didn't turn out to be their best trip to Japan so far. We took them up as far as Akita, via Nagano, Niigata and Yamagata. We did several small town festivals, ryokans in quiet valleys, swimming in mountain rivers, hiking in remote hills and eating local fayre.

They had an incredible holiday and have already booked for next summer.

Japan has an almost infinite amount of delights beyond the usual places.

The best locations are the ones that tourists don't go to.

Note these numbers are always foreign VISITORS, not TOURISTS.

There is quite a bit of business travel that has resumed.

Tourists flock to Costco.

Tourists flock to Costco.

Not true

"For foreign travelers who have never used Costco Japan, we will gladly issue an "one-day pass". It is valid only for the day and issued only once. It is free to be issued. Please bring your passport and apply for it at our membership counter. If you're a foreign visitor, you can get a tax refund on purchases over 5,000 yen."

Good luck getting that sofa as carry on :-)

Many tourists go to the IKEA near Shinjuku station.

Well well well …. Many people whined about the restrictive borders are now the same ones whining about over tourism.!. Oh the hypocrisy.!. Wait until fall sets in and the typhoon season has passed.!. Cooler temps.!. 5 million in November!

International Departures on the fourth floor at Kansai Airport Terminal 1 has become dangerously overcrowded. The wait just to get to Security can be up to two hours. The lines snake along without much signage. International flights are constantly held up because of the security line bottleneck. It seems very third world.

The weak yen, overtourism and less than competent airport management.

Osaka, Kansai, Japan EXPO2025 anyone?

Not anymore. A few months ago they finished whatever construction they had at the security gates. It's a fairly regular wait now, maybe some ten minutes during peak hours.

Kansai Airport now has a website to show, in real time, just how busy International Departures Terminal 1 fourth floor actually is - and how long the Security lines might be:

https://www.kansai-airport.or.jp/en/busyness

Please check for yourself before flying out. Leave at least three hours wiggle room before your flight departure time. Some European airlines have recommended this on their websites regarding KIX.