Japan aims to smash tourism record in 2025, as more travellers eye 'dream holiday'

Japan is seeking to smash its tourism record in 2025, picking up where it left off three years ago when it had aimed to surpass the pre-pandemic high of 31 million arrivals in 2019 before the spread of Covid-19 put paid to those efforts.

Tourism experts recently released a draft plan for the sector's medium-term outlook, which anticipates a rapid recovery in the inbound travel market. The government is expected to adopt the plan as official policy in March.

There had been high hopes that 40 million people would visit Japan in 2020, including an influx of sports fans to attend the Tokyo Olympic Games. But after Covid-19 broke out, the number plunged to 3.17 million that year, and fell further in 2021 with just 245,900 foreign arrivals.

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In an encouraging sign, some 3.8 million visitors travelled to Japan last year. The industry panel behind the forecast believes Japan will be able to tap into a global recovery in demand for air travel combined with interest in the Expo 2025 in Osaka.

The statistics are supported by the outlook for 2023 by domestic travel giant JTB Corp, which is anticipating 21.1 million foreign arrivals this year, more than five times last year's figure but only 66.2 per cent of the 2019 total.

In its study, JTB said it expected a strong recovery in demand from South Korea, Thailand, Singapore and other Southeast Asian markets, thanks largely to the relaxation of health requirements for travellers.

Prospects for the China market were less certain, with the report indicating that the continued travel restrictions meant that as of January 2023, there was "no prospect of a full-fledged recovery". But it added that once the rules had fully eased, demand would "recover rapidly, following the same pattern as other inbound markets".

The recovery of long-haul markets like Europe and North America was also expected to take a little longer, the report said.

Many travel insiders said they were already seeing signs of a strong tourism rebound.

"Since Japan reopened its doors to foreign travellers last autumn, Hyatt's hotels in the country have seen a remarkable increase in inbound guests," said Sam Sakamura, Hyatt Hotels' vice-president for Japan and Micronesia. Bookings are up around 180 per cent on the same period last year, he added.

"Reservations have strengthened for the upcoming cherry blossom season," Sakamura said. "In addition, the government's plan to revise the pandemic status to Class 5 under the Infectious Disease Control Law in May has boosted our outlook even further, and if China relaxes the border measures we will see an explosion of tourists from China."

Sakamura said he was confident that Japan remained a popular destination, pointing to the country coming in top of 117 nations in the World Economic Forum's ranking for travel and tourism attractiveness in 2021.

Masaru Takayama, president of Kyoto-based Spirit of Japan Travel, said many travel firms in the area had stopped taking new reservations in recent months after being inundated with inquiries and bookings.

"Some of my colleagues and partners are telling me that they are actually busier now than they were in 2019, before the pandemic," he said. "It seems that people have not been able to take a foreign holiday for a couple of years, so they have been saving their money for their 'dream holiday' to Japan."

Many of Takayama's clients were from Southeast Asia, while bookings from Hong Kong and mainland China showed few immediate signs of recovery, he said.

While Takayama was confident of Japan's travel recovery, he suggested that the government's bid to break tourism records was not the best tactic.

"It is good to see the numbers recovering, but in the past that meant certain parts of Japan - such as Kyoto - had a problem with overtourism," he said.

"I think it would be much more helpful if we focused less on mass tourism," he said. "Japan should instead put more emphasis on quality, attracting people who will stay in Japan for longer, stay at higher-end properties and spend a lot more than those in the mass-tourism sector."

Hiroyuki Takahashi, president of the Japan Association of Travel Agents and chairman of JTB Corp, cautioned that the industry could not afford to relax as domestic firms would continue to face a number of challenges, not least rising prices of aviation fuel as a result of the Ukraine war and more general cost increases.

"In order to be chosen by customers in both Japan and abroad, we must not only provide safety and security, but also value that matches the needs of the new era," Takahashi said in his New Year's statement to the association's 1,802 corporate members.

"We must create attractive storylines and deliver products and services that touch the heartstrings of our customers," he said. "And it is not enough to remain as the traditional travel industry of the past; we must be reborn, expand our markets and continue to create new value."

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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