International visitors spent 5.86 trillion yen ($39.27 billion) in the year to September, according to preliminary data from the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO), surpassing the 5.3 trillion yen tourists spent in all of 2023, a record, according to Reuters.
International tourist spending, classified as export value from tourists, is on track to become Japan's second-largest export after automobiles and ahead of Japanese electronic components.
On average, tourists spent 223,000 yen (about 37.1 million VND) per trip to Japan, based on data from July to September. This spending level has increased significantly compared to 163,000 yen in the same period in 2019.
Tourists from the Italian market spend the most money, followed by Spain and Russia.
There were 2.87 million international visitors to Japan in September, down slightly from 2.93 million in August, according to JNTO data.
Arrivals have set new monthly records since February, including 3.29 million in July, an all-time high for any month.
As of September, 26.88 million visitors had arrived in Japan, already surpassing the 2023 total and on track to break the record of 31.9 million set in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down global borders.
Meanwhile, the number of Japanese tourists going abroad increased 20.7 percent year-on-year to more than 1.2 million in September.
