China has ushered in an unprecedented wave of overseas travel that outbound tourists exceeded 100 million passengers last year. Chinese tourists to Japan in the year 2015 will exceed 5 million passengers, ranking first in the world.
The number of foreign tourists visiting Japan reached 13.41 million passengers representing an increase of 3 million or more compared to the previous year in 2014, and Chinese tourists increased from 1.31 million passengers in 2013 to 2.41 million passengers.
Japan has become one of the most popular travel destinations and a shopping paradise for Chinese tourists in recent years. 27.7% Chinese tourists visit Japan for shopping according to a research of Japan National Tourism Organization. Japanese inbound tourism income in 2014 reached about 2 trillion yen (US$16.24 billion) and over 25% of 558.3 billion yen (US$4.53 billion) from Chinese tourists. Per capita consumption of Chinese tourists was about 230,000 yen (US$1,807.06).
Many Chinese have travelled to Japan for more than once with a ratio of 25.9%. These tourists prefer traveling on a new itinerary at the second visit and most of them are the wealthy from metropolitan cities such as Bejing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The total number of China’s tourists is estimated to exceed 4.1 billion person trips in 2015, and reach a total revenue of 3840 trillion yuan (US$617.40 billion), according to China Tourism Academy.