Japanese tourism takes a big hit

I was saddened to read that one of the longer term effects of the March earthquake in Japan is that its tourism industry has dropped off to practically nothing. Now I guess this makes sense in some ways, especially in cities like Tokyo or northern cities, but when I hear about tourists cancelling trips to Fukuoka or even Okinawa I have to laugh (especially when they are living in Korea, which is CLOSER to Daiichi that Okinawa is). It does, apparently, make for some excellent travel deals for those willing to brave such perils (roll eyes) and visit the country, especially in normally horrendously expensive Tokyo, where hotels are slashing prices by 50% or more in an effort to keep people coming in.

However, from these stats it's obvious that western visitors have been on the decline for years. Tourism is up (or was) in Japan, but the vast majority of these tourists are South Korean and Taiwanese tourists, nations that twenty years ago had no money for tourism and whose government routinely denied their citizens passports. The simple fact is that Japan, the only accessable Asian destination besides Thailand and Hong Kong for decades, now has competition from much much less expensive China, Korea, Taiwan, Philippines and Malaysia. Also, while traditional rivals Hong Kong and Thailand have kept costs down, Japan is as expensive as most European destinations and more expensive than most North American ones. This leaves Japanese tourism in a very unenviable position in many ways. I do wonder how Japanese tourism will respond to the opening up of most of Asia to western tourists and their many many dollars, or if it can. That being said, whether its Geisha and samurai or anime and nintendo Japan does seem to have caught the imagination of westerners, and I imagine that once radiation levels go down (or the next major disaster makes us all forget this one) tourists will return, though I wonder in what sort of numbers.