Japan: Foreign Visitors Down 99% In April

Above, Osaka's Dotonbori during normal times. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

The COVID-19 pandemic shot Japan's tourism industry to smithereens.

The number of foreign visitors to Japan are almost non-existent compared to a year ago.

Kyodo News reported:

TOKYO - The number of foreign visitors to Japan in April tumbled 99 percent from a year earlier to 1,256 as the country tightened border controls in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, immigration authorities said Thursday. 

Visitors from China, who until January had accounted for the largest proportion of foreign tourists, totaled 29, down from 598,896 a year earlier, according to the Immigration Services Agency of Japan. 

The number of visitors from South Korea stood at 24, down from 546,368. The number of travelers from the United States stood at 296, down from 164,435, and those from Europe totaled 58, down from 236,707. 

Last month, Japan expanded entry bans to a total of 87 countries and regions, including the United States and the whole of China and South Korea, as it scrambled to curb an increase in coronavirus infections.

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