Japan sees first tourism dip for five years
Japan has seen a fall in the number of visitor arrivals for the first time in more than five years.
The Japan National Tourism Organization says arrivals dipped by 5.3% in September.
It was the first year-on-year drop since January 2013.
It doesn’t come as a surprise as tourism leaders were expecting a fall following the double whammy of a powerful typhoon and earthquake within days of each other.
The strongest tropical cyclone in 25 years, slammed into Osaka, causing immense flooding and travel chaos for days.
A magnitude 6.7 earthquake then struck Hokkaido in northern Japan, killing 40 people just a few days later.
It knocked out power to the entire island for several days.
Just prior to these incidents, tourism growth had begun to dip due to a slowdown in the China market.
China makes up nearly a third of all inbound arrivals.
Shinzo Abe’s government has made tourism a key focus and maintains an ambitious target of attracting 40 million tourists by the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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