Boom In Foreign Tourism Boosting Japan's Economy

Above, Ginza's Wako department store. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

It has been posted on this blog before, but now USA Today has an article on how foreign tourism has boosted Japan's economy.

They wrote:

TOKYO — When Peng Jia Wei stepped off the plane from southern China last month, he wasted little time in heading for the tony Ginza shopping district. 

By the following afternoon, he and his wife had spent several thousand dollars on clothes, home electronics and gifts for themselves and a wide circle of friends back home. 

"Relatives, neighbors, co-workers. Something for everybody," said a weary-looking Peng, outside a duty-free retail shop in the heart of the Ginza district. 

Big-spending visitors like Peng are responsible in part for Japan's boom in foreign tourism. 

A record 13.4 million people visited Japan in 2014, an increase of nearly 30% from a year earlier. Records were set in each of the first five months of this year; arrivals were up 50% in May alone.

The article also states that Japan expected 15 million foreign visitors in 2015. But, according to the article, they are on a pace to reaching 18 million. Their goal was to reach 20 million visitors by 2020.

To read more, go here.