While the number of visitors to Japan has been steadily increasing since border restrictions were eased last year, concerns about the pandemic and a weak yen are believed to be keeping Japanese citizens from traveling abroad, according to Kyodo News .
Japanese tourists wearing Vietnamese ao dai during a tour of Ben Thanh market
According to government data, the number of Japanese who left the country for tourism in March was 694,300, just 36.0% of the same period in 2019 - before the pandemic. In contrast, the number of foreign visitors to Japan recovered to 65.8% of the level in March 2019.
Therefore, the Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) and the Japan Tourism Association (JATA) will focus on promoting tourism to 24 countries and territories on the priority destination list, including supporting tourists with half-price passports, giving away tourism products, giving away airline tickets, etc. in a program called "Now, travel abroad!".
According to Japanese media, this is a good time for JTA to promote overseas travel for Japanese people, as all border control restrictions were lifted on May 8, when Covid-19 was downgraded to Level 5 under Japan's Infectious Disease Control Law, the same level as seasonal flu.
"The current two-way tourism imbalance needs to be corrected. Tourism recovery in markets such as Taiwan or South Korea is much faster than in Japan, despite these destinations opening their borders at the same time as Japan. Through these efforts, we are trying to boost demand for overseas travel this summer, with the expectation that Japanese outbound travelers will reach nearly 20 million compared to pre-pandemic levels by 2024," said Hiroyuki Takahashi, president of JATA.
The 24 key destinations in the program to promote Japanese tourists to travel abroad have been identified by this country as key source markets for the tourism industry in the land of the rising sun. Specifically, the 24 selected destinations include Vietnam, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, India, Canada, the US, Hawaii, Guam, Mexico, Spain, Finland, France, the UK, Germany, Italy, Turkey and Australia.
In the first 5 months of 2023, Vietnam welcomed 204,000 Japanese visitors, behind those from Korea, China, Thailand, the US, and Taiwan. Before the pandemic, in 2019, Japanese visitors ranked 3rd in the number of international visitors to Vietnam with more than 900,000, after China and South Korea.
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