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I think the nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi really put a damper on foreigners' desire to travel in Japan. It'll take years to recover, I think.
Lately, the yen has actually been quite strong vs. the dollar, hence the number of American tourists has gone down.
Coupled with the recent Senkaku / Daioyu islands dispute, I'm not surprised Japan's tourism numbers are abysmal. I do expect though the recent and upcoming easing of the yen will make the country more attractive as a tourist destination, perhaps to more southerly destinations or Hokkaido.
I would guess that language presents another hurdle. When confronted with a non-romance language most Westerners are scared silly. India is much the same way, combined with the aforementioned "scared of third world" things. The recent Bombay disaster probably put a big damper on it too, especially with the gunmen specifically targeting foreigners.
India has low costs in terms of boarding, food, shelter etc but its expensive to fly to india. India also has a automatically preciveved notion of being a slum filled place with nothing decent which is not true entirely. Also if you go to india, many times they can tell you are a foreigner and will often triple the prices of anything.
Japan doesnt have many tourists because they often bare foreigners from everything. Japan also doesnt advertize it self much for tourism so most people simply forget to think about japan.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by eskercurve
I think the nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi really put a damper on foreigners' desire to travel in Japan. It'll take years to recover, I think.
Lately, the yen has actually been quite strong vs. the dollar, hence the number of American tourists has gone down.
Coupled with the recent Senkaku / Daioyu islands dispute, I'm not surprised Japan's tourism numbers are abysmal. I do expect though the recent and upcoming easing of the yen will make the country more attractive as a tourist destination, perhaps to more southerly destinations or Hokkaido.
I would guess that language presents another hurdle. When confronted with a non-romance language most Westerners are scared silly. India is much the same way, combined with the aforementioned "scared of third world" things. The recent Bombay disaster probably put a big damper on it too, especially with the gunmen specifically targeting foreigners.
I wonder if this means lower prices? I guess there's still the domestic market, which has always been dominant.
I wonder if this means lower prices? I guess there's still the domestic market, which has always been dominant.
If the BOJ sells yen and buys dollars, while printing more yen, then prices of Japanese goods imported to the USA will fall and it will be cheaper to go to Japan for tourism, if you're American or Chinese (since China effectively pegs the yuan to the dollar).
Domestically this will drive up the price of imported goods and reduce spending power of savings, which the Japanese are diligent at but not good at investing them for growth (most are happy to just stuff money into a mattress or buy gov't bonds for savings ... why should they bother with others, when for the past 20 years you could save money and through deflation your money is worth more tomorrow than it is today?). The hope is this will spur domestic demand and spending, thus boosting the economy.
The worry is that Japan imports so many of its natural resources that domestic demand could be short lived as prices climb. Japanese employers may be loathe to reverse years of giving 0-1% raises to their workers.
its about the money and distance and size of the country.
india is huge. japan has horrible exchange rate.
europe is not so good either.
canada and mexico continue to be good exchange rate choices.
I actually asked why more Western tourists do not visit China or India about four years ago on a backpacker's forum, especially when so many go to Thailand, Vietnam, etc. A few of the replies stated that neither China nor India has as much of a tourist infrastructure as Southeast Asia. The replies also told of (at least in India) a kind of sensory overload that many tourists are not adventurous enough for.
It seems like much of the Western tourism to India is "spiritual" in nature (maybe I should have prefixed that with "pseudo-"?)
I would personally love to visit India and have even seriously planned a trip there, though I ended up on going to (much less adventurous) Mexico instead.
Some other large countries (in area or population) you rarely hear of people visiting:
Pakistan
Bangladesh
Kazakhstan
Indonesia (aside from Bali)
As someone mentioned, a lot of young couples visit Asia to enjoy the beaches and white sand. The culture tourists in America probably will choose between China and Japan with China winning because of its diversity a slightly more mysterious aura, and lower prices. Compared with the Great Wall, Forbidden City, and perhaps the Terracotta Warriors, Japan's offer of Kyoto's temples and the large Budha in Nara do not have the same mass appeal.
I lived in Japan for a few years in the late 90s and did notice a lot of foreign (usually American) tourists in and around Tokyo. Japan does have Mt Fuji, which is a day-trip from Tokyo, and while I enjoy Tokyo more than Beijing, even Tokyo-Mt Fuji, does not have quite the same mass appeal as Beijing-Great Wall.
Another reason is that places like Thailand get all the winter vacationers because of the year round warm weather. I'm currently in Shanghai and today's high will be 4 C. Northern cities like Beijing, Tokyo, and Seoul are almost closed for tourists for a few months each winter.
I haven't been to China in over 10 years, I wonder if they have convenient mass transportation language around, like in Japan, where the vast majority of train stations and many bus stops have English?
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