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Foreign visitors to Japan, spending hit record levels in 2015

Xinhua, January 19, 2016 Adjust font size:

The number of foreign visitors and the amount they spent during their time in Japan both hit record levels in 2015, the Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) said on Tuesday.

The number of travelers coming to Japan in the recording year peaked at a new record of 19.74 million, topping the 13.41 million people who visited in 2014, JTA said, with spending in 2015 estimated at around 3.48 trillion yen (29.6 billion U.S. dollars) compared to 2.03 trillion yen a year earlier.

According to the agency, the leap in the number of visitors coming to Japan was partly due to relaxed visa requirements. In addition, a comparatively weak yen and lure of particular duty-free products available for purchase, boosting visitors' spending power and incentives to shop here, also helped boost numbers, the agency said.

Visits to Japan from Chinese mainland tourists topped the list in 2015, totaling 5 million people compared to just 2.41 million in 2014, with travelers from South Korea numbering 4 million, up more than 20 percent compared to a year earlier. Tourists from China's Taiwan, meanwhile, comprised the third-highest total at 3.68 million, which was almost 19 percent higher compared to visits in 2014, the agency said.

Trips to Japan by visitors from the United States climbed 16 percent, the latest figures also showed, with numbers climbing above one million also marking a new record.

It was the Chinese travelers who splashed out the most when here, the agency said, spending a combined 1.42 trillion yen. South Korean visitors spent around 300 billion yen.

On average, foreign visitors' individual spending was 176,168 yen, an increase of 16.5 percent compared to figures a year earlier.

Another record-setting statistic the agency said, was that 2015 saw numbers of visitors coming to Japan outstripping those traveling out of Japan, for the first time since 1970, when numbers peaked owing to the World Exposition being hosted here.

In a press conference held Tuesday, Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister Keiichi Ishii, reiterated the government's goal of seeing 20 million visitors to Japan from overseas by 2020, when the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games will be held in the capital. Endit