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Overseas visitors to Japan down 18.4% in January, for sixth straight month of decline

February 27, 2009
By Ken Worsley


Although they didn’t publish the figures on their English-language website, the Japan National Tourism Organization announced on Wednesday that the number of overseas travelers visiting Japan in January fell 18.4% against a year ago to 581,000. This is the third consecutive month of double-digit decline, and the sixth consecutive month of overall decline.

At the same time, the number of Japanese heading overseas fell 12.9% against a year ago to 1,179,000. This is the 21st consecutive month in which the number of Japanese traveling overseas has fallen.

In terms of foreign visitors to Japan, South Korea remains the leader, with 129,600 visitors in January. Due to the rise in the value of the yen, however, this figure was down 52.3% from a year ago. Other nations with strong percentage drops in the number of visitors to Japan were Germany (6,500 visitors, down 21.6%), France (8,200 visitors, down 12.7%), the US (47,300 visitors, down 12.7%) and the UK (13,600 visitors, down 10.5%).

However, the number of visitors from China increased by 31.4% to 110,400, the number of visitors from Hong Kong increased 34.1% to 46,600, and the number of visitors from Singapore increased 35.8% to 9,000.

Filed Under Business, Tourism 

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Comments

2 Responses to “Overseas visitors to Japan down 18.4% in January, for sixth straight month of decline”

  1. Bad Economy on March 3rd, 2009 4:42 am

    At this point last year I might have made a trip, but now I can’t tell if I will need my money for something else. I just don’t have the reserves to commit to travel overseas.

  2. Bard on March 25th, 2009 1:51 am

    Well, when the yen weakens a year from now we’ll see massive growth in these figures. They’re about as low as they can go right now, and the recovery will bring massive upside.

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