Record number of 42.7 million tourists flock to Japan last year

TOKYO

People visit a shopping street in Asakusa district near Sensoji Temple, a popular tourist location in Tokyo on Jan. 20.

A record number of tourists flocked to Japan in 2025, officials said Tuesday, despite a steep fall in Chinese visitors in December as a diplomatic row between Beijing and Tokyo rumbled on.

Japan logged 42.7 million arrivals last year, according to the transport ministry, topping 2024's record of nearly 37 million as the weak yen boosted the appeal of the "bucket list" destination.

However, the number of tourists from China last month dropped about 45 percent from a year earlier to around 330,000.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's suggestion in November that Tokyo could intervene militarily in any attack on Taiwan triggered a sharp diplomatic backlash from China, which urged its citizens to avoid travelling to Japan.

Tuesday’s announcement showed the warning has had an impact on visitor numbers.

China has been the biggest source of tourists to the Japanese archipelago, with almost 7.5 million visitors in the first nine months of 2025 — a quarter of all foreign tourists, according to official figures.

Attracted by a weak yen, Chinese tourists splashed out the equivalent of $3.7 billion in the third quarter.

The overall increase is partly due to government policies to promote attractions from Mount Fuji's majestic slopes to shrines and sushi bars in more far-flung parts of the archipelago.

The government has set an ambitious target of reaching 60 million tourists annually by 2030.

However Japan's biggest travel agency JTB forecasted that overall tourist numbers this year would be "slightly lower" compared to 2025 due to a decrease in demand from China and Hong Kong.