China has become the country with the highest number of visitors to Japan by overtaking Korea.
According to the Japan National Tourism Organization on May 22, the number of Chinese inbound tourists for the four-month period between January and April this year was 1,329,300, up 98.9 percent from the same period last year, taking the No. 1 position among all countries for the first time.
Although the number of Korean visitors also rose 43.5 percent to 1,252,500 during the same period, its growth fell short of that of the Chinese. In January alone, the Korean visitor number was still higher than that for the Chinese. But it was reversed in the following months. The number of Chinese visitors in Japan in February was 359,100, 159.8 percent higher than the same month a year ago, overtaking that of Korea (321,600).
Last year, the visitor numbers for Korea were 14.3 percent higher for Korea than China (2,755,313 vs. 2,409,158). At the time, Korea was relegated to No. 2 for the first time by handing over the No. 1 spot to Taiwan.
For years, Korea's tourist number in Japan has consistently maintained the No. 1 position except last year. That was largely because of the anti-Japanese sentiments harbored by many Chinese people. Recently, however, the growth in Chinese tourists in Japan has been led by those young female tourists in their age between mid-20s and mid-30s who have little hard nationalist feeling against their neighbors and readily spend fortunes on shopping.
