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Japan aims to smash tourism record in 2025, as more travellers eye ‘dream holiday’
- The country hopes to pick up where it left off three years ago when it had aimed to surpass the pre-pandemic high of 31 million arrivals in 2019
- Travel giant JTB expects a strong recovery in demand from South Korea, Thailand, Singapore and other Southeast Asian markets
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Japan is seeking to smash its tourism record in 2025, picking up where it left off three years ago when it had aimed to surpass the pre-pandemic high of 31 million arrivals in 2019 before the spread of Covid-19 put paid to those efforts.
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Tourism experts recently released a draft plan for the sector’s medium-term outlook, which anticipates a rapid recovery in the inbound travel market. The government is expected to adopt the plan as official policy in March.
There had been high hopes that 40 million people would visit Japan in 2020, including an influx of sports fans to attend the Tokyo Olympic Games. But after Covid-19 broke out, the number plunged to 3.17 million that year, and fell further in 2021 with just 245,900 foreign arrivals.
In an encouraging sign, some 3.8 million visitors travelled to Japan last year. The industry panel behind the forecast believes Japan will be able to tap into a global recovery in demand for air travel combined with interest in the Expo 2025 in Osaka.
The statistics are supported by the outlook for 2023 by domestic travel giant JTB Corp, which is anticipating 21.1 million foreign arrivals this year, more than five times last year’s figure but only 66.2 per cent of the 2019 total.
In its study, JTB said it expected a strong recovery in demand from South Korea, Thailand, Singapore and other Southeast Asian markets, thanks largely to the relaxation of health requirements for travellers.
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Prospects for the China market were less certain, with the report indicating that the continued travel restrictions meant that as of January 2023, there was “no prospect of a full-fledged recovery”. But it added that once the rules had fully eased, demand would “recover rapidly, following the same pattern as other inbound markets”.
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