International visitors to Japan were up 2.2% to 31.88 million in 2019 with the total spending of 4.8 trillion JPY

Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) reported that the number of international visitors to Japan in 2019 was up 2.2% year on year to record-high 31,882,100. Visitors from 19 major markets, except South Korea, broke the previous records. 

While visitors from China were up 14.5% to 9,594,300, those from South Korea were down 25.9% or about 2 million to 5,584,600. The Rugby World Cup 2019 boosted the U.S., Europe and Australia markets, and the growth rate of visitors from U.K. particularly was 80% in September and October and reached 27% through 2019.

The Southeast Asia market was also boosted especially by extension of the LCC network, and a 20% or higher increase a year was found in Philippines (+21.7%) and Vietnam (+27.3%).

In December 2019 only, however, international visitors to Japan were down 4.0% to 2,526,400, marking year-on-year reductions for three months in a row. JNTO explained that it resulted from a 60% decrease in visitors from South Korea.

The graph below illustrates monthly changes of international visitors to Japan in 2019 and visitors by market in December 2019. 

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The graph below illustrates yearly changes of international visitors to Japan in the last decade.

inbound_total_2019_yearly

Japan Tourism Agency announced that travel spending by international visitors in Japan totaled 4,811.3 billion JPY in 2019, 6.5% more spending than 2018. Spending a traveler was up 3.5% to 158,000 JPY, but the growths were found in only eight markets, such as France with a 10.1% increase to 237,648 JPY, U.K. with a 9.3% increase to 241,530 JPY or Thailand with a 5.2% increase to 130,912 JPY. 

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