Japan posted record-breaking tourist figures in 2024

Big in Japan

There was a reason it felt like your social feeds and office-team chats were flooded with people sharing pictures, videos, and anecdotes from their two-week sojourns to Japan last year: the country welcomed a record 36.87 million visitors in 2024, up more than 15% from the previous prepandemic high in 2019. 

Though the figure, posted by the nation’s tourism body earlier this week, is provisional, it would put the national government ahead of its goal to welcome 60 million overseas visitors a year by 2030 — a target set in 2016, well before the pandemic scuppered the nation’s tourism industry as it did everywhere else. While elected officials will be happy with the new record, locals affected by issues of overcrowding on public transport and packed restaurants are less enthused about the 2024 high.

With its unique culture, Michelin-star-studded cuisine, and tourist hotspots like Mt. Fuji and Tokyo’s famous Shibuya Crossing, Japan has long been a popular destination for people with wanderlust. However, a less romantic reason also undoubtedly played its part in last year’s boom: a weak national currency, with the yen hitting a 37-year low against the dollar in June.

All told, visitors spent a whopping 8.14 trillion yen (almost $52 billion) in Japan last year, 53% more than the year before.

The bulk of the island nation’s tourists last year came from nearby countries like South Korea (8.8 million) and China (7 million), but a whopping 2.7 million Americans also made trips to Japan in 2024, up almost 700,000 on the figure for 2023.