Japan has experienced a steady growth in international visitor arrivals over the years. Tourism in Japan received a major boost in 1970 during the World EXPO, which was held in Osaka. Though Japan's tourist potential has received considerable exposure, the EXPO did not have a major impact on the long-term growth of international arrivals. Any beneficial effects that could have been expected in the 70's as a result of the EXPO were offset by the rise in airfares that resulted from the international oil crisis at that time. Although the oil crisis and the consequent rise in airfares had a detrimental effect on arrivals from western countries, the number of arrivals from Asian countries increased. This increased influx of Asian tourists can be attributed to the improving economic conditions in the Asian region generally. In 1979 Taiwan lifted travel restrictions on overseas travel and the resulting increase in Taiwanese visitors to Japan marked the start of an increased growth in total overseas arrivals to Japan that continued up to the mid 80's. Tourism received a further boost when Korea lifted restrictions on overseas travel in 1989. However, from 1992 to 1995 there was a reduction in arrivals due to the global recession that followed the Gulf war in 1991, and Japan's increased cost of living at that time resulting from a positive balance of trade that kept the yen highly valued. This trend reversed as Japan's exchange rate reduced during its 1995 recession resulting in an up turn in arrivals in 1996 and 1997. However, arrivals again dropped in 1998 due to the Southeast Asian economic crisis but this decline was countered by an increase in western travellers in 1999. Due to the fast recovery of the Southeast Asian economies post 1998 and consequent increase in arrivals to Japan from these countries, and a continued increase in arrivals from western countries; total arrivals to Japan further increased in the year 2000. A total of
5.24 million overseas visitors arrived in Japan in 2002, an increase of 9.8 percent on arrivals in 2001. This number decreased to 5.21 million in 2003, due mainly to the outbreak of SARS and the war in Iraq. However, as a result of policies inaugurated in 2003 to encourage inbound tourism and achieve 8 million arrivals in 2007, overseas arrivals in 2004 increased to 6.1 million. Total visitor arrivals to Japan from 1964 to the year 2004 are shown in Figure 1.2 with significant events indicated on the figure against the relevant time periods.
Figure 1.2 Total Visitor Arrivals to Japan from 1964 to 2004
03 SARS Virus 04 Welcome policy 01 Sep/11 Attack in USA 91 Gulf War 98 Recession
95 Rising Land Costs 85 Tsukuba Expo
87 Strong Yen 89 Korean Travel Restrictions Lifted
79 Second Oil crisis
79 Taiw an Travel Restrictions Lifted 73 First Oil Crisis
70 Osaka Expo 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 1965 1970 19'75 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 A rr iv a ls ( '00 0s )
Source: Japan National Tourist Organisation.
The average length of stay of visitors is 8.5 days. In 1990 the average stay was 13.2 days but since the mid 90s this figure has been 8.5 days on average, indicating a
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significant change in the attitude and life style of visitors to Japan, and also the shorter distance travel growth from neighbouring countries.
Arrivals to Japan can be classified as tourists, business arrivals and others such as students from other countries arriving in Japan for studies, and Japanese residents abroad, visiting friends and relations. The total arrivals include, in addition to the above, shore excursionists who arrive without visas and are granted entry permits at the port of arrival. Figure 1.3 shows a steadily increasing trend in all three categories of overseas visitors.
Figure 1.3 Total, Tourist, Business and Other Arrivals to Japan from 1978 to 2003 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 Time A rr iva ls ( 0 00 's ) Total Business Tourist Other
Data Source: Japan National Tourist Organisation.
The age and gender breakdown for visitor arrivals in the year 2003 is shown in Table 1.2. These figures show 54.7% were male and 45.3% were female visitors. The age group with the largest number of male visitors (15.5%) was the 30 to 39 year
category, the next largest (13.5%) being the 40 to 49 year category. The age group with the largest number of female visitors (12.0%) was the 20 to 29 year category, the next largest (10.9%) being the 30 to 39 year category.
Table 1.2 Visitor Arrivals to Japan in 2003 by Gender and Age
Age Category Males Females
0 to 9 99,519 (1.7 %) 95,918 (1.7 %) 10 to 19 153,875 (2.7 %) 172,668 (3.0 %) 20 to 29 497,958 (8.7 %) 689,969 (12.0 %) 30 to 39 886,872 (15.5 %) 626,723 (10.9 %) 40 to 49 772,150 (13.5 %) 442,288 (7.7 %) 50 to 59 438,403 (7.7 %) 307,091 (5.4 %) 60 and over 285,892 (5.0 %) 257,914 (4.5 %) Total 2,727,240 (54.7%) 2,592,571 (45.3 %)
Source: Japan National Tourist Organisation.
The number of international conventions held in Japan from 1994 to 2003, and the number of international participants is shown in Table 1.3. Japan ranks 11th among countries worldwide that hold international conventions and meetings in terms of the number of conventions held. Year 2001 recorded the highest number of conventions held but there has been a decline since. October and November were the most popular months for these meetings. In 2003 Japan hosted 219 large international conventions, each with delegates from at least five countries (Source: Japan National Tourist Organisation).
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Table 1.3 Number of International Conventions and Participants
Year Conventions Participants
1994 1769 73315 1995 1820 76313 1996 1917 66045 1997 2163 77036 1998 2415 78862 1999 2475 73874 2000 2689 91340 2001 2737 99719 2002 2683 110791 2003 2554 106308
Source: Japan National Tourist Organisation
The number of Japanese traveling overseas each year is much larger than the number of overseas visitors to Japan. As a result, receipts from international visitors to Japan are much lower than the payments from Japanese overseas travellers. The number of Japanese overseas travellers in 2003 was 13.2 million, down from 16.5 million in 2002. In the year 2003 receipts from inbound visitors were US$ 8,848 million while payments from outbound Japanese travellers were US$ 28,959 million. Per traveller, in 2003 this amounted to receipts of US$ 1,701 per visitor and payments of US$ 1,755 per Japanese outbound traveller (World Tourism Organisation Travel Compendium, 2005).
The main visitor source countries, in decreasing order of total arrivals to Japan, for the years 1995 to 2003 are shown in Table 1.4. Though the rankings change marginally from year to year the countries within the top 12 have remained fairly consistent over the nine year period from 1995 to 2003 and unchanged from 1999. The rankings of the top three countries, Korea, Taiwan and USA have not changed since 1995.
Table 1.4 Top 12 Countries of Visitor Origin from 1995 to 2003
Ran 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000-2003
1 Korea Korea Korea Korea Korea Korea
2 Taiwan Taiwan Taiwan Taiwan Taiwan Taiwan
3 USA USA USA USA USA USA
4 China China Hong Hong China China
5 UK Hong China China Hong Hong Kong
6 Hong UK UK UK UK UK
7 Australia Australia Australia Australia Australia Australia
8 Philippines Canada Canada Canada Canada Canada
9 Canada Germany Germany Germany Philippines Philippines 10 Germany Philippines Philippines Philippines Germany Germany
11 France Thailand France France France France
12 Thailand France Singapore Singapore Singapore Singapore
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