Countries, Regions Use Osaka-Kansai Expo to Attract Japanese Tourists; Japanese Tourism Overseas Slow to Recover Due to Weak Yen, High Prices

By Yukiho Takaichi / Japan News Staff Writer

1:00 JST, June 11, 2025

Countries and regions participating in the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo are using the event as an opportunity to actively attract Japanese tourists.

The number of Japanese people traveling overseas has decreased since the COVID-19 pandemic, and the weak yen and high prices have slowed recovery.

However, exhibitors are working to attract Japanese tourists to their countries or regions through such efforts as offering local dishes.

The Canada Pavilion opened a cafe operated in cooperation with Air Canada, the country’s leading airline company. The cafe’s signature dish is poutine, which is fries covered with cheese and gravy, and is populra in Canada. Visitors can also watch videos highlighting the country’s tourist destinations.

“We’d like to use the Expo as an opportunity to increase the number of visitors to Canada,” said Kiyo Weiss, director of Regional and Premium Sales, Asia Pacific for Air Canada. “We hope to increase people’s interest in Canada through food and let them know that they can visit the country with Air Canada.”

The Turkey’s Pavilion is trying to attract tourists to the country by creating brochures introducing the Gobekli Tepe, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and displaying the latest model of business class seats for the country’s airline.

About 130,000 Japanese tourists visited the country in 2024, according to the Turkiye Tourism Promotion and Development Agency. The agency’s official said the country is aiming to eventually attract 500,000 to 1 million Japanese travelers.

According to the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO), about 13 million Japanese people traveled overseas in 2024, less than 70% of the figure in 2019, a year before the pandemic.

In addition, as of the end of 2024, only 17.5% of the population in Japan had a passport. The figure is 6 percentage points below that of five years ago, a sharp contrast to the increasing number of inbound tourists.

Those in the Japanese tourism industry expressed their concerns about the situation.

“Unless more Japanese people travel overseas, airline companies will find it difficult to increase the number of flights to and from Japan, and the number of inbound tourists will eventually plateau,” said a JNTO official.

Those in the travel industry in Japan are holding meetings with their foreign counterparts during the Expo to discuss ways to increase the number of Japanese tourists.

Now that summer vacation is approaching, Expo exhibitors hope to cash in on the event to increase the number of Japanese tourists to their countries or regions.