Just days after China called on citizens to limit traveling to Japan due to escalating diplomatic tensions, travel agency East Japan International Travel Service (headquartered in Tokyo) lost 80% of its tour bookings for the rest of the year.
This small enterprise, specializing in group tours for Chinese tourists, is becoming the party that suffered the most damage in the boycott wave that is at risk of dealing a big blow to the Japanese economy - the world's fourth largest economy.
Beijing has advised Chinese citizens to limit their travel to Japan after the two countries were tense due to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's statement on the issue of Taiwan (China).
Travel recommendations have led to a series of canceled flights, and Japan's tourism stocks have plummeted.
This is a huge loss for tourism businesses in Japan.
The tourism industry contributes about 7% of Japan's GDP, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), and has been an important growth driver in recent years.
Tourists from mainland China and Hong Kong (China) account for about 1/5 of the total number of visitors to Japan.
According to estimates from the Nomura Research Institute, the boycott wave could cost Japan about 2.2 trillion yen ($24.23 billion) a year.
Japanese travel group stocks have fallen sharply since the warning was issued on November 14.
More than 10 Chinese airlines have announced refunds for flights to Japan until December 31, with an analyst estimating that about 500,000 tickets have been canceled.
China's three largest airlines - Air China, China Southern, China Eastern - and four others have issued a notice allowing free refunds or flight changes for booked tickets until December 31.
John Grant, senior expert at the British aviation analytics company OAG, said that Chinese airlines are likely to suffer greater damage than Japanese airlines.
The China-Japan aviation market is dominated by Chinese airlines, with the five largest airlines all from China. Therefore, it is likely that these companies will be more severely affected, he said.
Grant said it would take another few weeks to see significant changes in flight capacity, despite some signs of stress cooling.
With Japan seemingly wanting to calm the situation, this may be a short-term problem, but it is still enough to disrupt all sides, the expert said.
According to China Trading Desk (Singapore), the number of cancellations and bookings shows that departures to Japan in the next few weeks will decrease by more than 30% compared to last week. The impact will mainly focus on trips departing before January 2026.
China was Japan's largest source of international visitors in the first 9 months of the year, with about 7.49 million visitors, Kyodo News cited data from the Japanese government.
In the first 8 months of 2025, more than 6.7 million Chinese visitors have arrived in Japan, up from 4.6 million in the same period last year, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO).
Chinese tourists often choose Japan because of its short, attractive flights, and the price affected by the Yen price reduction.
