The USA is the Country Most Visited by Japanese

Since the United Nations declared 1967 as the "International Year of Tourism" and proclaimed the slogan "Tourism, a Passport to Peace," there has been a massive increase in the number of travellers worldwide. According to a survey by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), 763.28 million people traveled abroad in 2004. When you look at the ranking of travellers by country in 2003, Germany comes in at first place with 74.8 million travellers, followed by England and the USA, and Japan takes 15th place.

However, regarding the amount of the money spent while traveling abroad, Japan comes in at 4th place after Germany, the USA and England. The number of Japanese who traveled abroad in 2005 was about 17.4 million people. Breaking down this figure by destination, the USA is the most popular destination for Japanese with 3.88 million visitors, which increases to 5.4 million when Hawaii is included. China takes second place with 3.39 million travellers and grows to 4.6 million when visitors to Hong Kong are included. Korea comes in after China with 2.44 million.

On the other hand, when you look at the international ranking of countries that accepted foreign visitors in 2004, France ranks first with 75.12 million tourists, followed by Spain, the USA, China, Italy and England. Japan comes in at 30th place. Approximately 6.73 million foreigners visited Japan in 2005, which is a record. Looking at the places they visited, Tokyo was the most popular destination with 58.2% visitors, followed by Osaka with 21.6%, Kyoto (17.4%), Kanagawa (16.4%) and Chiba (13.0%).

Koreans largest visitor group to Japan
The number of foreign tourists visiting Japan is increasing thanks to campaigns such as "Yokoso Japan" promoted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. However, regretfully, the number of foreigners traveling Japan is less than 40% of the number of Japanese who travel abroad. When the amount of money spent by foreign tourists in Japan is subtracted from the amount of money spent by Japanese travelers abroad, the result is a large loss for Japan. This means that Japanese spend a money that the country earns from overseas credit and exporting while traveling overseas.

Looking at foreign tourists to Japan by region, travelers from Asia number 4.63 million, or 68.8% of the total. This is followed by North America with one million, Europe with 0.8 million and then Oceania with 0.24 million. To look at visitors numbers by nationality, Koreans make up the largest portion of visitors to Japan for the seventh consecutive year with l.75 million. This is followed by Taiwan with l.27 million, the USA with 0.82 million and China with 0.95 million visitors (including 0.3 million from Hong Kong).

In spite of the long distance separating the countries, Japanese make up the biggest group of visitors to the USA, which are the third largest group to visit Japan. This seems natural since the relationship between both countries is very good. It is interesting to note that many Japanese are traveling to China and Korea, where anti-Japanese policies exist. On the other hand, many people from both of those countries are constantly visiting Japan. It seems that politics has very little to do with traveling and that geographical proximity is more important.

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