People walk under winter illuminations displayed with one million “Champagne Gold” LED bulbs at Marunouchi business district in Tokyo on December 16, 2018. (Photo by Kazuhiro NOGI / AFP)
TOKYO— The number of foreign tourists who visited Japan in 2018 marked a record high for the sixth year in a row at 31.19 million, up about 2.5 million – or 8.7 percent – from the previous year, Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister Keiichi Ishii said at a press conference after a Cabinet meeting last Friday.
The figure has increased threefold in five years since 2013, when the number of visitors to Japan topped 10 million.
Behind the increase are such factors as the Japanese government relaxing requirements for issuing visas, mainly for visitors from Asian countries, as well as the expansion of air routes.
A series of natural disasters that hit Japan in 2018 caused a drop in the number of visitors in September from a year earlier, the first such drop for a month in five years and eight months since January 2013. However, the flow of tourists has since recovered.
The government has set a goal of raising the number of foreign visitors to 40 million by 2020. “The target of 40 million is in our sight. We must stimulate demand without missing such opportunities as the 2019 Rugby World Cup and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics,” Ishii said.