Accelerating Recovery in Inbound Demand due to Drastic Easing of Border Measures

◆Border measures will be drastically eased from October 11. In estimating the number of inbound tourists (foreign visitors) that might have visited Japan if the spread of COVID-19 had not occurred, we see that the number of tourists restrained by the spread of infection and border measures was around 35.4 million in 2021 (4.5 tril yen in consumption value) and around 43.5 million in 2022 (5.7 tril yen). There is considerable room for future recovery from the relaxation of border measures, and the current "bad yen depreciation” may turn into "good yen depreciation" due to the boost that could be gained from inbound tourism.

◆As for China and Hong Kong, which accounted for nearly 40% of the number of foreign visitors to Japan in 2019 before the infection spread, full-scale recovery will take time due to the impact of China’s Zero-COVID policy. In Shizuoka Prefecture, Nara Prefecture, Aichi Prefecture, and other prefectures where the reliance on tourists from China and Hong Kong was high, there is a possibility that the recovery in inbound tourism may be delayed. In order to attract tourists from a wide range of countries and regions, it will be important to make efforts such as providing information on tourist destinations in multiple languages.