Japan wants 60 million tourists, but China isn’t sending them

AI Summary

Japan aims to attract 60 million tourists and develop tourism as a sustainable pillar for its economy, hoping to rival traditional industries. Despite a record 42.7 million foreign visitors last year, the country faces challenges from reduced tourism inflows from China.

Japan has found a new export industry and it doesn’t come off an assembly line. It arrives by plane, spends freely and is, increasingly, what Tokyo is banking its economic future on. Last year, 42.7 million foreign visitors arrived in the country, a record that shattered the previous year’s high by nearly 16 per cent. Now Tokyo wants to turn that surge into something more lasting: a permanent pillar of growth to rival, or even outlast, the industries that built modern Japan. To achieve that...