Japan continues to draw record numbers of foreign visitors. In April, the number hit 1.76 million, setting new record highs for three months in a row. The number of Chinese tourists visiting the country during the popular cherry blossom season more than doubled compared to a year earlier. The number of inbound tourists in the first four months of the year surged 43 percent from the same period of 2014. If the trend continues for the rest of the year, the annual total could reach close to 20 million.
It would not be surprising if the government's goal of welcoming 20 million annual inbound tourists is achieved well ahead of the target year of 2020, when Tokyo hosts the Summer Olympics. The Abe administration has set a new goal of boosting consumption by inbound tourists from ¥2 trillion last year to ¥4 trillion by 2020. It hopes to develop inbound tourism into a new engine of the economy that will generate 400,000 new jobs.
The government should identify what policy steps still need to be taken to make Japan an attractive destination and should steadily implement the measures so that the inbound tourism boom will become a long-term trend rather than a temporary phenomenon at the mercy of economic and other factors.