TOKYO -- Step off the train -- or even onto the train -- in one of Tokyo's trendy neighborhoods and it becomes obvious: The foreign tourist hordes are back. But what are they doing while not recording videos of themselves stepping through Shibuya crossing? Nikkei has surveyed retailers and manufacturers and put together a foreign tourist shopping list.
Actually, national estimates show foreign tourists are mostly back. In April, 1.95 million of them visited Japan, about 30% fewer than those who arrived four years earlier, before COVID. The falloff is mostly attributable to Chinese traveler arrivals. While Chinese accounted for 30% of total visitors before the virus, they constituted less than 10% in the latest monthly data.
