The number of foreign visitors to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum marking the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing of the city increased some 104,500 from a year earlier to a record 338,891 in fiscal 2015, the museum said Wednesday.
A museum official attributed the rise in visitors in the fiscal year that ended in March to the World Scout Jamboree held in neighboring Yamaguchi Prefecture last summer that brought about 4,500 students per day to the museum as well as continued positive reviews on some U.S. travel websites.
The total number of Japanese and foreign visitors to the museum stood at 1,495,065, up around 180,000 from the previous year, the fifth-highest annual total since its opening.
The museum, which documents the aftermath of the atomic bombing, opened 10 years after the city of Hiroshima was devastated by the attack, which killed an estimated 140,000 people.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited the site earlier this month on the fringes of the Group of Seven foreign ministerial meeting held in the city, becoming the first top U.S. diplomat to do so. His G-7 counterparts representing Britain and France also visited the museum.
Meanwhile, the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims, which opened in 2002 near the museum, saw a record 313,891 visitors in fiscal 2015.