The weakening yen has contributed to international visitors to Japan crossing the 3 million mark in May, an increase of a whopping 60 percent from the same month last year and surpassing the 3 million mark for the third time in a row, according to government figures released on Wednesday.
The China holiday season and an increase in aircraft and ships arriving from East Asia were cited by the Japan National Tourism Organization as the reasons for the high number of tourist arrivals.
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The Numbers
For the month of May, Japan reorded 3.04 million tourists, from over a dozen nations, including South Korea and the United States.
The JNTO data shows that the total number of visitors from January to May was 14.64 million, which represents an increase of 6.5 percent over the same time in 2019 prior to the coronavirus epidemic.
Top Tourists
South Korea accounted for the largest number of tourists at 738,800, up 22.4 percent from 2019 and 43.3 percent from a year earlier. China came in second with 545,400, more than four times the figure from a year before but still down 27.9 percent from 2019.
According to the organisation’s preliminary data, Amercian tourists totaled 247,000, up 34.7 percent from a year earlier and up 57.4 percent compared to May 2019. Taiwan came third with 466,000, up 53.6 percent on the year and gaining 9.3 percent from 2019.
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At a news conference, Commissioner of the Japan Tourism Agency Ichiro Takahashi stated that if the current rate of arrival growth continues, the total number of visitors through 2024 may break the yearly record of 31.88 million recorded in 2019.
At 941,700, the number of Japanese people traveling abroad in the reporting month was up 39.4% from the previous year but down 34.5 percent from 2019.
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