Overseas visitors to Japan rise in July for first time since March

Overseas visitors to Japan topped 3.44 million in July, climbing 0.1 percent from the previous year, to mark the first increase since March.

The number of visitors from China continued to dip significantly, but arrivals from South Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere appear to have made up for the shortfall.

The Japan National Tourism Organization says its preliminary figures show that Japan had 3,442,100 foreign visitors in July. That's a record high for the month.

By country or region, the number of visitors from China excluding Hong Kong saw a drop of 56.1 percent due to souring bilateral relations. Visitors topped 428,000, but marked the eighth straight month of year-on-year decline.

Meanwhile, South Korea topped the list, with more than 894,000 visitors to Japan, up 31.9 percent.

Visitors from Taiwan also increased, at over 763,000, up 26.4 percent.

The number of visitors from Hong Kong plunged in July last year, due to baseless rumors over a possible disaster in Japan that spread across social media.

Visitors from Hong Kong this July leaped to top 272,000, up 54.8 percent.

Visitors from Malaysia also rose. These trends offset the shortage of visitors from China.

nhk