By AKIFUMI NAGAHASHI/ Staff Writer
July 19, 2023 at 18:00 JST
Tourists stroll through a shopping arcade in front of Hakone-Yumoto Station in Kanagawa Prefecture. (Akifumi Nagahashi)
More than 2 million foreign tourists visited Japan in June, the highest monthly figure since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Two million is a milestone because that was last reached in January 2020, shortly before Japan and other nations closed their borders.
On July 19, the Japan National Tourism Organization reported 2,073,300 foreign tourists in June. The figure is 72 percent of the total for June 2019.
Domestic travelers are also on the move. Summer reservations are rising, causing some destinations to see the impact of an excessive influx on local communities.
South Korea was the country of origin for the largest number of foreign tourists in June, at about 550,000. In second place was Taiwan, at about 390,000. The United States fell to third with about 230,000.
Prior to the pandemic, China was the source of the greatest number of tourists arriving in Japan. But in June this year only 210,000 or so traveled from China, in large part because Beijing continues to ban group travel.
Tourists from nations other than China are approaching pre-pandemic levels.
Meanwhile, the annual total is inching upward. Foreign tourists exceeded 10 million in the first six months of 2023, or about 64 percent of the 2019 figure.
The government has set an annual goal of 32 million foreign tourists by 2025. It previously attained 31.88 million in 2019.
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