American tourist arrivals to Japan grew 3.6% year-to-date in 2023 over the same time (January-April) in 2019, a year that set a record for foreign travel to Japan, according to the Japan National Tourism Organisation (JNTO). Nearly 184,000 Americans visited Japan in April 2023 alone, an increase of 8% over April 2019. This makes the US the only Western country to experience an increase in tourism to Japan, aside from its North American neighbour, Mexico, which saw a 13.1% increase in visitor numbers over the same period. Michiaki Yamada, Executive Director of the Japan National Tourism Organisation in New York, reports an exponential rise in American travellers’ interest in visiting Japan. Following the end of all Covid-related entry restrictions this spring and the reopening of our country’s borders to foreign tourism in late 2022, “we will likely be welcoming more Americans than ever before in the months to come due to the incredible pent-up demand to experience the wonders of Japan post-pandemic.”
Japan is one of the most talked about travel destinations of 2023 with the country as a whole, along with its top cities and regions, appearing on some of the most coveted “Where to Go” Lists of the year, including: the Japanese cities of Morioka and Fukuoka in the New York Times’ annual list of “52 Places to Go in 2023”; Kyoto and Nagoya featured on Time Magazine’s list of “The World’s Greatest Places of 2023”; The Washington Post named Japan on its list of “The Top Travel Destinations for 2023”; the “art islands” of Naoshima included in CNN Travel’s list of “Where to Travel in 2023: The Best Destinations to Visit”; Kyushu featured in Bloomberg Pursuits’ “Where to Go in 2023” list; Osaka named to The Daily Beast’s list of “Where to Travel in 2023”; Japan on the Reader’s Digest list of the “20 Best Places to Travel in 2023”; Japan included in the TripSavvy list of “Where to Go in 2023: The Most Exciting Destinations of the Year”; Tokyo featured on CNBC’s list of “The 7 Cities You Must Visit Before You Die”; and the list goes on.
Source- travel daily