Spending by foreign travelers in Japan sinks 47% in April-June+

TOKYO, Aug. 31 Kyodo -
Money spent by foreign visitors during stays in Japan in the April-June quarter plummeted 46.9 percent from a year earlier to an estimated 120.8 billion yen, as the number of travelers halved following the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, data released Wednesday by the Japan Tourism Agency showed.
The amount spent per person averaged about 111,000 yen, compared with about 104,000 yen in the same period the previous year and some 113,000 yen in the preceding quarter, according to the agency.
Visitors from China spent the highest total sum of 29.9 billion yen, followed by those from South Korean at 16.8 billion yen and Taiwan at 16.7 billion yen.
The number of tourists plunged to 443,000 people from 1,306,000 a year earlier, accounting for just 41 percent of all visitors, down from 60 percent in the April-June period last year.
The percentage of travelers on business trips rose to 38 percent from 25 percent, but that merely reflected the fact the number of business travelers posted a smaller decline -- to 409,000 from 548,000 -- than the drop in tourists.
The percentage of tourists who visited the quake-hit northeastern Tohoku region, where the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant is located, plunged to 10 percent from 36 percent. And the percentage visiting the neighboring Kanto region, which includes the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolitan area, slid to 35 percent from 55 percent.
But the percentage of tourists who went to Kyushu and Okinawa Prefecture in the southwestern part of the country stayed unchanged at 47 percent.
The vast majority of foreigners who did visit Japan in the three-month period soon after the March disasters rated the country highly, though, judging from the results of a questionnaire given to 7,000 foreign visitors at nine major ports and airports.
Nearly nine out of ten said they were satisfied with their trips -- and 92.8 percent said they want to visit Japan again.