Economy

Foreign Visitors to Japan Hit Record High for Sept.

Yomiuri Shimbun file photo
Foreign tourists are seen at the Dotonbori district in Osaka on April 27.

Jiji Press

17:48 JST, October 16, 2024

Tokyo, Oct. 16 (Jiji Press) — The estimated number of foreign visitors to Japan in September grew 31.5 pct from a year before to 2,872,200, a record high for the month, chiefly thanks to increases in visitors from countries including China and Malaysia, the Japan National Tourism Organization said Wednesday.

Helped by the yen’s sharp depreciation, the cumulative number of foreign visitors in the first nine months of this year reached about 26.88 million, already exceeding 25.06 million for the whole of last year,

The result for September this year represented a rise of 26.4 pct compared with September 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The number of visitors to Japan hit a record high for the reporting month for the eighth straight month.

The Japan Tourism Agency separately said Wednesday that total spending by foreign visitors to Japan in July-September came to ¥1,948 billion , the second-largest quarterly figure after the record high logged in April-June this year.

Per-visitor spending came to an estimated ¥223,000 , while accommodation costs accounted for over 30 pct of overall spending, according to the agency.