Japan received 30.19 million international visitors in the first 10 months of the current year, reflecting a growth of over 51 pc as compared to the corresponding period last year. The international arrivals in the month of October alone were over 3.31 million, a growth of almost 32 pc as compared to 2.52 million in October 2023.

According to figures by Japan National Tourism Organisation (JNTO), the growth has been led by traditional markets like the neighbouring East Asian nations of South Korea, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, besides the United States.

JNTO says that South Korea, which is its largest source market topped in arrivals, both in the month of October as well as in the first 10 months, recording 732,000 and 7.2 million arrivals respectively, reflecting a year-on-year growth of 16 pc and 30 pc respectively.

China was the second largest source market, with 582,000 arrivals in October and 5.8 million arrivals in the January-October period, reflecting a growth of 127 pc and 214 pc respectively.

Taiwan was just behind China with 479,000 and 5 million visitors respectively, a growth of 13 and 49 pc in the two periods.

Ryo Bunno

The next largest source market for Japan was the United States which registered 278,000 and 2.24 million visitors in the month of October and the first 10 months of the current year. Hong Kong accounted for 199,000 and 2.17 million visitors in the two periods.

According to JNTO, while most other source markets have also grown, India registered one of the strongest growth rates of over 41.2 pc in the period from January to October 2024, accounting for over 192,500 visitors as against 136,000 in the same period last year. The arrivals from India to Japan in October, too, grew fairly briskly at over 29 pc, from over 16,800 to 21,700, says JNTO.

JNTO New Delhi says it is mounting its activities in India to promote travel to Japan. “We see a big potential in Indian outbound market for Japan which was about 200,000 passengers so far. We are promoting now aggressively, targetting mainly MICE which has been a traditional segment, but we have also seen leisure grow significantly in the post-pandemic period,”  Ryo Bunno, Executive Director of JNTO, Delhi, tells India Outbound.

Though there are several direct flights between the two countries, Bunno says that the connectivity has not yet recovered to the pre-pandemic levels. “Currently, the direct connectivity between India and Japan is about 80 pc of the pre-pandemic period. Japanese airlines, JAL and ANA are already aggressively targetting Indian leisure business also. And we are also promoting connecting flights with Singapore Airlines or Thai Airways,” Bunno adds.

JNTO recently held a roadshow in New Delhi as part of enhancing its activities in India to promote travel to Japan (Photo: India Outbound)

In 2025, JNTO will step up its activities in India, with a clear focus on B2B market. “Our focus in 2025 will be the B2B segment as not many travel agents in India are very well informed about Japan as a destination. So we will promote greater awareness about Japan amongst the travel agents in India. We have also begun some B2C campaigns and a recent travel fair that we organised got a good response, so we will perhaps do more such activities in 2025, but keep a clear focus on the B2B segment,” says Bunno.