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Foreign visitors to Japan close to 22 mln in January-November

Xinhua, December 21, 2016 Adjust font size:

The number of foreign visitors to Japan amounted to nearly 22 million in the first 11 month of this year, said the Japan Tourism Agency on Wednesday.

A total of 21.99 million foreign visitors toured Japan between January and November, up 22.4 percent from the same period of last year and beating last year's total of 19.7 million.

For the single month of November, the number stood at 1.88 million, up 13.8 percent from a year earlier, the highest level for the month.

During the 11 months, visitors from China ranked first at 5.95 million, followed by South Korea at 4.60 million.

"Although a high annual growth like last year (of nearly 50 percent from the previous year) will not continue, we should keep the growth rate at around 20 percent," Akihiko Tamura, commissioner of the Japan Tourism Agency, was quoted as saying by Kyodo News.

Setting a target to draw 40 million foreign visitors to Japan in 2020, when Tokyo will host the Olympics and Paralympics, the Japanese government plans to improve infrastructure and better promote regional tourist attractions. Endit