Japan arrivals slump 34% in May
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The number of foreign visitors to Japan fell 34.0% to 486,100 in May representing the 10th straight year-on-year monthly decline, according to a Kyodo News report data from the Japan National Tourism Organisation (JNTO) as saying. The H1N1 influenza virus and ongoing global economic downturn have been blamed for the slump. The number of Japanese travelling abroad also decreased because of the flu scare, down 18.6% to 1.03 million, despite a string of holidays early in the month.
The rate of decline is now at its sharpest since August 2003, when it dropped 22.4% amid the SARS outbreak.
Among the 12 countries and regions which the Japanese government has been making efforts to attract visitors, travellers from South Korea posted the steepest decline of 48.5%, followed by Taiwan at 47.9% and Singapore at 40.8%. The number of visitors from China fell 18.8% in May, the report added.
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