Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) reported that international visitors to Japan were up 21.8% year on year to record-high 2,4039,000 in 2016, marking the first over 20 million outnumbering 19.7 million in 2015. Despite the annual growth, the growth rate was much lower than 47.1% in 2015.
Combined 17 million Japanese overseas travelers, the two-way traffic market reached 40 million for the first time.
The table below shows change of international visitors to Japan for the last decade:
The top market in 2016 was China with 6.37 million visitors (+27.6%), followed by Korea with the first over 5 million and Taiwan with the first over 4 million. Including Hong Kong, visitors from four markets in East Asia increased by 23.1% to about 17 million, which accounted for 72.7% of the total. All of major international markets except Russia resulted in record-high visitors.
In December 2016, international visitors to Japan were up 15.6% year on year to 2,050,600. The table below shows monthly changes of international visitors to Japan:
