Numbers of South Korean Tourists Fall in Japan

In September, tourists from South Korea, Japan's long term main tourist source market, preferred to book trips elsewhere. Compared to the previous year, visitors from South Korea unsurprisingly plummeted 58.1% – the relations over history and trade between the two countries recently have been frostier than ever. Last month, only 201,200 South Koreans travelled to Japan, according to the figures released by the Japan National Tourism Organization. This follows a 48% decline in August.

Yet the figures of the year before were not shining either as in 2018 natural disasters kept tourists away. These included typhoon Jebi that flooded western Japan in early September 2018 and the earthquake that struck Hokkaido shortly afterward.

This drop-off in numbers of tourists from South Korea is especially felt in the regions traditionally welcoming the bulk of South Korean visitors. The Beetle hydrofoil ferry service between Fukuoka in Japan and Busan in the South Korea reports a drastic downturn in traffic accounting to 80 percent.

It looks very unlikely that the goal of 40 million visitors by 2020 set by the government in 2016 will be reached.

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