AlwaysAisle

Japan National Tourism Organization released number of non-Japanese visitors on month of September.

Note: number of visitors are counted by number of non-Japanese passport holders entering Japan regardless of purpose (business, vacation, visiting family, etc.). Nationality was determined by passport issuing country. Also, if a person made trip to Japan twice during month of September and entered Japan twice, then that would have counted as two visitors, not one visitor.

867000 non-Japanese visited Japan during month of September 2013, which was increase of 31.7% from September 2012. Rankings are:

1. Taiwan- 206800 visitors
2. South Korea- 164500 visitors
3. China (excludes Hong Kong and Taiwan)- 156300
4. U.S.A.- 61300 visitors
5. Hong Kong- 55400 visitors
6. Thailand- 29300 visitors
7. Australia- 21500 visitors
8. United Kingdom- 15800 visitors
9. France- 11900 visitors
10. Germany- 11800 visitors
11. Malaysia- 11700 visitors
12. Singapore- 11600 visitors
13. Canada- 11300 visitors
14. Indonesia- 8700 visitors
15. Philippines- 7900 visitors
16. Vietnam- 7400 visitors
17. India- 6400 visitors
18. Russia- 5100 visitors

OskiBear

Cool info - thanks for posting.

What would also be fun is to see where Japanese in the same period of time visited. Meaning, of outbound Japanese tourists, did the places they visit resemble in proportion in any way the visitors inbound to Japan?

jib71

http://www.tourism.jp/en/statistics/#outbound

abmj-jr

Ok, just had to say it - one of those 61,300 visitors from the US in September was yours truly. Just doing my part.

freezefactor

So it looks like the total number of Chinese speaking visitors (those from TW, HK and Mainland) is more than from the entire rest of the world combined. And still huge amount of growth potential for Mainland visitors. I'd probably look into learning Mandarin if I was in Japan....

dcman2

Us too - 4 of us - that's a total of 5

freecia

Shop staff in Tokyo big electronic stores have spoken Mandarin to me. The usual tourism shopping places probably also have Mandarin speaking workers. I remember Uniqlo Ginza put out a press release on their foreign staffers so some retailers recognize the opportunities http://www.japantoday.com/category/b...-foreign-staff
China UnionPay is accepted at more Japanese ATMs than my US based ATM card.
http://en.unionpay.com/news/newsroom/file_2651965.html

As a female solo shopper and Asian American, it is interesting which non-Japanese language staffers use when approaching me. I guess the female staffers pick up cues from the fashion indicators? Maybe there are courses?

kevincrumbs

Considering the small population of Hong Kong, that number is really impressive. Even more impressive is the Taiwanese number as the population is about 3.2 times that of Hong Kong but the visitor number is 3.7 times that of Hong Kong's visitor number.

acregal

I go by the Shinsaibashi shotengai in Osaka a few times a week and there are always tons of Chinese and Koreans there (actually, the Chinese tours usually gather by the entrance and block the area). A lot (not most, but pretty close) of the people in the shotengai are foreigners and that's quite different from a few years ago.

jib71

When I visited Taiwan a few years ago, I noticed a lot of travel guides to Japanese onsens and so on - in book stores and even convenience stores. It seemed like Japan had a well established image as a tourist destination over there.

KPT

That might have the unintended consequence of making English somewhat easier to learn, since the number of syllable variations will sharply increase from the standard 46.

As for mainland visitors increasing -- I pray that one day visa entry requirements will involve checking that the pax understands how to behave in public. Speaking as an American, maybe this should be required from Europe/US too.

AlwaysAisle

Tourists from China, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan are big part of tourist money in Japan. Many major department stores in Tokyo are focusing on tourist from China, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan. Specifically department stores in Tokyo are targeting Fuyuuso (富裕層) from these countries which are upper class and upper middle class people. Electronic stores at Akihabara are saying same thing, they are focusing on tourists from China, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Train conductors on Sleeper Express train Hokutosei (北斗星) and Cassiopeia (カシオペア) says that these days it is not unusual to have more than 50% of the train occupied by tourists from China, Hong Kong, South Korea, or Taiwan. Hokutosei and Cassiopeia are sleeper express train between Ueno (Tokyo) and Sapporo. The train has a dining car which serves French course meal and Japanese meal. Conductors said that tour groups are often accompanied by a tour guide who speaks Japanese so language is often not a problem. Also, conductors said for passengers from China, Honk Kong, and Taiwan they can communicate by writing Kanji (漢字). Also conductors said elderly from South Korea speak fluent Japanese.

Once I had a trip to Akita. Korean Air has thrice weekly Incheon (Seoul) – Akita flight. The day of my trip happened to be the day of Incheon – Akita flight, and at arrival at Akita I saw Korean Air 737-800 parked at the gate. When exiting the terminal at Akita, I saw four or five large tour bus waiting outside of the terminal. Looked like buses were taking South Korean tourists to various Onsenn (温泉) places in Akita and Iwate.

Language schools in Japan has seeing popularity of Chinese and Korean taking over English. ANA and JAL said that used to be international business class focus was Europe and the U.S. but now focus is China.

Ministry of Education in Japan did survey regarding Japanese college students studying abroad. Most recent number is from 2012. The ranking based on number of Japanese students studying abroad is:

1. U.S.A.- 21,290 students
2. China- 16,808 students
3. U.K.- 3,851 students
4. Australia- 2,413 students
5. Taiwan- 2,302 students
6. Germany- 2,135 students
7. Canada- 2,097 students
8. France- 1,743 students
9. South Korea- 1,147 students
10. New Zealand- 988 students

ksandness

Japan has had bilingual (Japanese-English) signs in public places since the American Occupation, but in recent years, I have noticed quadrilingual signs, with Chinese and Korean being the third and fourth languages.

I think the Western tourists are diversifying, too. I visited Sensoji for the first time in years and was surprised to hear several different languages from the Western tourists, not just the American and Australian English that one typically heard around tourist sites but also French, Italian, and a few others that I didn't recognize.

Ryvyan

I'm a solo female traveller and I have never had anyone in Tokyo speak anything other than Japanese at me. My default language is English, so maybe I should try Mandarin the next time I'm there, would make for a less lonely experience in stores.

jib71

In many stores and restaurants you may find that the staff are more comfortable speaking Mandarin than Japanese.