The number of travelers from Taiwan to Japan spiked sharply in January to almost 260,000, following the removal of COVID-19 border restrictions by both countries late last year, a Taiwan foreign ministry official said Thursday.
The number of visitors from Taiwan to Japan jumped not only from a year earlier but also from the same month in 2019, Chou Shyue-yow (???), Secretary-General of the foreign ministry’s Taiwan-Japan Relations Association, said at press conference.
Specifically, the 259,300 outbound tourists to Japan last month represented 67 percent of the number in January 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Chou said, citing statistics from Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO).
After the outbreak of COVID-19, the number of visitors from Taiwan to Japan began shrinking, and by January 2022, it had dropped to 492, Chou said, noting that the 259,300 recorded last month was a massive jump.
Tourism to Japan has been growing rapidly since the country late last year removed its tight border restrictions, after more than two and a half years of COVID-19 control measures, according to JNTO data released Feb. 15
The data showed that Japan recorded 1,497,300 visitor arrivals in January, with South Korea as the largest source market, accounting for 565,200, or 37.7 percent.
Taiwan, which removed most of its own border restrictions last October, was the second-largest source, with 259,300 tourists, followed by Hong Kong (151,900), the United States (88,100) and Thailand (63,400), according to the data.
JNTO’s data for December 2022 showed 1.37 million visitor arrivals, a monthly figure that breached the 1 million mark for the first time since February 2020, with South Korea and Taiwan also listed as the two largest source markets.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel