The growth in the number of foreign visitors to Japan has started to stagnate.
On top of the decline in the number of South Korean visitors, affected by strained Japan-South Korea relations, the number of visitors from Taiwan and Hong Kong, which have been driving up the number of visitors in recent years, has hit a ceiling. The Japanese government's goal of increasing the number of visitors to Japan to 40 million by 2020 is reaching a crucial stage.
The district of Yufuincho in Yufu, Oita Prefecture, is known as a hot spring resort popular among South Korean tourists. No cars were seen Tuesday at a parking lot near Lake Kinrin, a sightseeing spot famous for its fantastic morning fog. The scene has completely changed since this summer, when relations between Japan and South Korea deteriorated rapidly.
Half of the 900,000 foreigners who visited Yufu in 2018 were South Koreans. Souvenir shops around the lake, which were expecting to attract South Korean tourists, reported an 80 percent drop in sales in August compared to the same month last year, resulting in them shortening their business hours.
"I don't know what to do because I don't believe at present that South Korean customers will come back," a female shop manager said.
The number of South Korean passengers aboard the Beetle Jet Ferry between Hakata and Busan also fell by 70 percent in August from a year earlier.
"People around me said, 'Are you serious about going to Japan at this time?'" a South Korean man waiting in the departure lobby of Hakata Port said. "I want [the two countries] to become friendly enough for tourists to travel more casually."
There has been a mood in South Korea that tends to criticize travelers to Japan, and the term "Shy Japan" was coined to describe those who visit Japan without telling those around them.
Meanwhile, the number of tourists from Japan to South Korea increased by about 5 percent in August, showing no noticeable impact from the deterioration of bilateral relations.
Japan Tourism Agency Commissioner Hiroshi Tabata said, "Efforts to continue mutual exchanges will help maintain air routes." The agency aims to utilize social media to distribute information while reinforcing alignment with South Korean tourism agencies to boost the number of visitors to Japan again.
South Korea is not the only source of concern, though. The number of visitors from Taiwan --
which ranked second in the number of visitors to Japan in August -- has remained unchanged from January to August, while the number of visitors from Hong Kong, which ranked fourth, fell by 2 percent partly due to protracted demonstrations there. More than 80 percent of those visitors have come Japan more than twice, and some say they "are getting tired of traveling in Japan."
Tokyo Woman's Christian University Prof. Noriko Yagasaki, who specializes in tourism, said the public and private sectors should develop new tourism areas and increase the number of repeat visitors who stay for a long period.
"Asian tourists account for more than 80 percent of the total, but it is necessary to increase the rate of travelers from Europe and the United States as they tend to stay longer," she said.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
