Chinese visitors contributed a quarter of Japan’s record tourism receipts of JPY2 trillion (approx: US$16.6 billion) in 2014, according to Japanese government statistics.
Visitor arrivals from China and Korea rebounded to 2.41 million and 2.76 million respectively last year, after the great earthquake and tsunami on November 3, 2011 led to declines in Chinese and Korean arrivals to 1.04 million and 1.66 million that year, according to Kyodo News Agency.
Tourism trade surplus for Japan in February this year stood at JPY63.3 billion (approx: US$500 million), marking a new monthly record since 1996 and the fifth consecutive month of surplus.
Visitor expenditure in Japan was boosted thanks to the inclusion of food products and cosmetics in the range of duty free goods since October 2014.
Another contributing factor is that Japanese visitor arrivals to China and Korea were declining between 2010 and 2014.
In the recent trilateral tourism ministers meeting, the tourism heads of China, Korea and Japan reached a consensus to encourage tourism exchange among the three countries and work towards growing the tourism flow to 30 million trips in 2020 from 20.47 million trips in 2014.
The seventh Trilateral Tourism Minister’s Meeting between PRC, Japan and Korea held in Tokyo was attended by China National Tourism Administration’s director Jinzao Li, Japan Transportation Minister Akihiro Ota and Korean Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Jongduk Kim.(Translation by David)
