Tourism in Japan

Tourism in Japan attracted 8.3 million foreign visitors in 2008, slightly more than Singapore and Ireland.^[1] Japan has 16 World Heritage Sites, including Himeji Castle and Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto. Kyoto receives over 30 million tourists annually.^[2] Foreigners also visit Tokyo and Nara, Mount Fuji, ski resorts such as Niseko in Hokkaidō, Okinawa, ride the shinkansen and take advantage of Japan's hotel and hotspring network.

Statistic

In 2010 there were 8,611,175 tourists visit Japan.^[4]。

rank	country	number (people)	percentage
1	South Korea	2,439,816	28.3%
2	China	1,412,875	16.4%
3	Taiwan	1,268,278	14.7%
4	United States	727,234	8.4%
5	Hong Kong	508,691	5.9%
6	Australia	225,751	2.6%
7	Thailand	214,881	2.5%
8	United Kingdom	184,045	2.1%
9	Singapore	180,960	2.1%
10	Canada	153,303	1.8%
	Others	1,295,341	15.0%
	Total	8,611,175	100%

Tourism after the Fukushima-disaster

After the triple melt-down of the nuclear reactors in Fukushima, the number of foreign visitors declined for months in a row. To boost tourism the Japanese Tourism Agency announced in October 2011 a plan to give 10,000 round-trip air tickets to Japan away in order to encourage visitors to come to Japan. In 2012 free tickets would be offered on condition that the winners would write online about their experiences in Japan. They also would need to answer some questions, about how they felt while visiting Japan after the earthquake, and how the interest in tourism in Japan could be renewed. In September 2011 some 539,000 foreign people visited Japan, this was 25 percent down compared with the same month in 2010. This decline was largely attributed to the Fukushima nuclear accident, but also the stronger yen made a visit to Japan more expensive. About 15 million dollars would be spent on this program. ^[7][8] On December 26, 2011, The Japan Tourism Agency reported on their site that the "Fly to Japan! Project", which would have given out 10,000 round trip tickets to Japan was not approved by the government for it fiscal year 2012. ^[9]