The number of Japanese tourists traveling abroad dropped a record 9 percent in 2001 from the previous year to 16.22 million, while tourists visiting Japan rose a marginal 0.3 percent to a record 4.77 million, the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry said in a report Tuesday.
In the fiscal 2001 white paper on tourism, the ministry attributes the drop in tourists going abroad to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, a weaker yen and the prolonged economic slump.
The ministry said reluctance to travel abroad may persist because of the poor domestic economy and concerns over international security.
The increase in tourists visiting Japan was traced to a sharp rise in visitors from China, which lifted a ban on group trips to Japan, the ministry said. The number of Chinese tourists climbed 11.3 percent to 392,000.
On the domestic front, the average person went on vacations of at least two days 2.2 times in 2001, a decline of 11.7 percent from the previous year's figure, while the number of days spent on holiday averaged 4.31, down 16.8 percent from the previous year.