Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) announced that the number of international visitors in Japan in March 2023 was record-high1,817,500 since the pandemic happened, about 300,000 more visitors than February 2023, and the reduction rate in comparison with 2019 improved from 43.3% in February to 32.4%.
JNTO analyzed that the growth resulted from a cherry blossom season and restart of international cruises to Japan. Visitors from U.S. (203,000) and Australia (45,200) exceeded the results in March 2019.
The largest source market was South Korea with 466,800 visitors(down 20.3% over 2019), followed by Taiwan with 278,900 visitors (down 30.7%), U.S. with 203,000 visitors (down 15%), Hong Kong with 144,900 visitors(down 15.5%), and Thailand with 108,000 visitors (down 26.8%). Visitors from Singapore were up 20.6% to 52,700 compared to March 2019.
According to OAG, international flights arriving in six major airports in Japan (Narita, Haneda, Kansai, Nagoya, Fukuoka and Sapporo) were up 283.2% year on year to 12,319 and available seats were up 272.4% to 2,945,559 in total. International flight arrivals extended to 15 local airports,
The following graph shows international visitor arrivals by month and by source market.