Will the phenomenon of "explosive buying" still occur under the depreciation of the Japanese yen?, Chinese citizen team tour to Japan resumes news | culture | depreciation

On August 10th, according to the official website of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the General Office of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued a notice on resuming the business of Chinese citizens traveling as outbound group tourists to relevant countries and regions through travel agencies. According to the notice, starting from today, travel agencies and online tourism enterprises across the country will resume operating group tours and "air ticket+hotel" services for Chinese citizens traveling abroad to relevant countries and regions.

Among them, Japan, South Korea, the United States, the United Kingdom, and others are all included in the third batch of recovery lists. "I've been looking forward to it for a long time," Lai Lijun, a senior leader of Jinjiang Tourism, told First Financial after the above notice was released. He said that team tour routes such as Japan will be quickly implemented, and there will be overtime in the future.

The tourism industry has become one of the pillars of Japan's economy. Taking the 2019 pre pandemic tourism data, which is highly valued by the Japan National Tourism Administration, as an example, the tourism industry contributed approximately 7.3% to Japan's gross domestic product in that year.

The Japanese government has set a new goal for the recovery of the tourism industry: striving to achieve a new high in the number of tourists visiting Japan by 2025. Previously, the peak of tourists visiting Japan occurred in 2019, with approximately 31.88 million visitors. The revised Basic Plan for Promoting Tourism and National Development shows that in the future, in addition to increasing the number of tourists visiting Japan, the Japanese government plans to increase the individual consumption of tourists from 159000 yen in 2019 to 200000 yen, and to increase the single accommodation time of tourists from other places outside the three major metropolitan areas from 1.35 nights in 2019 to 1.5 nights.

"We are still waiting for the day when Chinese tourists return, especially after the resumption of normal Chinese team tours, which will be a shot in the arm for the recovery of Japan's tourism industry," said Miho Saname, a representative of the publicity department of the Japan Travel Association, one of Japan's two major travel agency industry associations and with 1100 travel agency members, to First Financial earlier this year

2/3 of the tourism market may be taken down by China

The latest "Foreigner Consumption Trends" data released by the Japan National Tourism Administration shows that from April to June 2023, the travel consumption of foreign visitors to Japan reached 1.21 trillion yen, returning to 95.1% of pre pandemic 2019. At present, in terms of national consumption, American tourists have the highest daily consumption amount of 173.3 billion yen, with an average daily consumption of about 290000 yen. Japanese media predicts that if Chinese team tours to Japan resume, two-thirds of the Japanese travel market is expected to be taken by China.

In 2019, the number of foreign tourists visiting Japan was 31.8821 million, of which 16.7756 million came from China, accounting for 52.6% of all foreign visitors to Japan.

The above data also shows that in 2019, the overall consumption of foreign visitors to Japan reached a record high of 4.81 trillion yen, an increase of 6.5% from 2018 and a record high for seven consecutive years. Among them, the consumption of Chinese Mainland tourists reached 1.77 trillion yen, ranking first, accounting for 36.8% of the total consumption of foreigners visiting Japan, 2.6 percentage points higher than in 2018.

As far as Chinese tourists go to Japan, 2009 and 2011 are two special years. Public information shows that at the end of 2009, the Japanese government officially opened individual single visit tourist visas to Chinese tourists; At the end of 2011, the Japanese government officially opened individual multiple visit visas for Chinese tourists. Afterwards, Chinese tourists developed rapidly in Japan.

During the epidemic, the number of foreign tourists, including Chinese tourists, visiting Japan plummeted sharply, and Japan's tourism industry quickly froze. Since Japan's opening up in June 2022 in the form of "small steps", the tourism industry in Japan has entered a recovery track. According to data from the Japan Tourism Administration, foreign tourists visiting Japan increased significantly in June this year, surpassing 2 million for the first time since February 2020, reaching 2.0733 million. However, as China has not yet opened up group tours for Chinese tourists to Japan, there were only about 200000 Chinese tourists visiting Japan in June.

Will "explosive buying" still occur?

Looking back, in 2015, due to factors such as the depreciation of the Japanese yen, the act of Chinese tourists shopping extensively in Japan not only led to a surge of 107.3% in the number of Chinese tourists visiting Japan compared to 2014, but also made the term "explosive buying" popular in major Japanese media. The explosive growth of Chinese tourists in 2015 also ushered in the fastest growth in the number of tourists to Japan in history.

Nowadays, some Japanese media are hoping that in the current situation where the yen is depreciating again, with the recovery of Chinese team tourists, the former "explosive buying" will reappear. Since the beginning of this year, the Japanese yen has become the currency with the largest depreciation against the US dollar in the currency camp of developed economies, and there is still no trend of weakening to strengthening. Since the first half of this year, the Japanese yen has depreciated by 10.06% against the US dollar.

"When I first arrived at the end of October last year, Japan's tourism industry had already recovered to 70% of pre pandemic levels, and this year it is estimated to have recovered to around 90%." Wang Zhengwei, director of the Tanaka Kakuei Cultural Foundation, told First Financial, "The small portion of Chinese tourists has been filled by tourists from Europe, America, and Southeast Asia.".

For the tourism industry in the post pandemic era, some Japanese tourism industry professionals have expressed that although the increase in international flights and the depreciation of the yen have brought benefits, in the long run, Japan needs to pay more attention to high-quality tourism experiences in order to attract "repeat customers" from both domestic and foreign markets.

Sang Meibao also told First Financial that after the epidemic, foreign tourists tend to seek higher value-added tourism, not just limited to "sightseeing", such as experiencing and trying content they had not previously understood. "Therefore, this is also a new direction we are preparing for.".

According to First Financial News, the Northeast region of Japan, including seven counties including Miyagi Prefecture, Iwate Prefecture, and Yamagata Prefecture, hopes to seize the Chinese market in the post epidemic recovery through various forms and strive to become a new landmark for Chinese tourists to visit Japan and check-in. Yuan Xiaofei, a staff member of the China office of Japan's Northeast Tourism Promotion Agency, told First Financial that although the Northeast region of Japan is "niche", it has a more "primitive atmosphere" and can fully immerse itself in the original ecological natural environment. She believes that this is also a new trend for tourists from Chinese Mainland to travel to Japan in the future.

According to the data of the Northeast Tourism Agency of Japan, in 2019 before the epidemic, the number of Chinese Mainland tourists visiting the northeast region of Japan was about 320000. According to the public data of the Japan Tourism Administration, taking 2019 as an example, only 3% of tourists from Chinese Mainland have visited Northeast Japan.

Saito Nobumi, the head of the Tourism Revitalization Department at the Yokohama City Cultural and Tourism Bureau's MICE Revitalization Department, told First Financial that while Yokohama's tourism industry is gradually recovering, it is also waiting for overseas tourists, especially Chinese tourists, to return. He told First Financial that in recent years, Yokohama has added many new landmarks for check-in. For example, the Air Cabin, which has been in operation for two years, is Japan's first "urban" cable car built in the plains, located in the center of Yokohama City, connecting JR Sakuragi cho Station and the Canal Park where Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse is located, with a total length of about 630 meters. At the same time, the Yokohama Gundam factory at the Yokohama Yamashita Pier has also become a new favorite of many anime fans. In addition, the Yokohama Ocean Tower has been updated, and Sony's project WALK AROUND MIRAI, which introduces the Future 21 Area of the Bay while taking a walk, has also been launched.

"In Yokohama, there are many ways of mobile payment. There are many stores that can use WeChat, Alipay and UnionPay, and more stores that support multi languages." Saito looks forward to seeing more and more Chinese tourists return in the near future.