Almost 1.3 million Hongkongers have travelled to Japan in the first six months of the year, up on the pre-pandemic 2019 figure, a senior Japanese official has told the Post as the country experiences a tourist boom spurred by the weak yen.
Hanako Jimi, Japan’s minister for regional revitalisation who is also in charge of Osaka’s World Expo 2025, added Hong Kong was a major target for promotion of the six-month event which starts April and that she hoped it would attract more visitors from the financial hub.
“One of the major reasons is that Hong Kong people love Japan and are very friendly [towards us],” Jimi told the Post after a public event as she wrapped up her two-day trip to the city.
She said the number of visitors from Hong Kong to Japan had been on the rise and that the whole year figures were also on track to exceed 2019’s total.
The country logged more than 2.29 million Hong Kong visitors in 2019 and 2.11 million Hongkongers visited Japan last year when the city reopened its borders after three years of pandemic restrictions.
Jimi added the country welcomed 1.28 million visitors from Hong Kong in the first six months of 2024, a 16 per cent increase on the same period in 2019.
In contrast with the influx of Hong Kong tourists to Japan, the number of trips made by Japanese people to Hong Kong between January to May this year was 237,592, or 40.9 per cent of the 580,241 recorded over the same period in 2019.
“I think one of the major reasons is the weakening Japanese yen,” Jimi said. “It’s not just Hong Kong, but the Japanese people or young people cannot afford to travel overseas.”
She added she hoped more Japanese people would travel to Hong Kong as she had seen first hand Hong Kong’s vibrant culture when she visited the contemporary art museum M+.
Jimi said she considered the museum “one of the best in the whole of Asia”.
“Hong Kong has such wonderful museums,” she said and added she “wanted to let people know how wonderful the culture is”.
There will be 161 countries or regions and nine international organisations involved in the Osaka World Expo, with more details expected to be revealed later this year.
“It is not only an opportunity for visitors to see Japanese culture, but also a great opportunity for everybody to see different cultures and different art,” Jimi said.
She added about 28.8 million visitors to the Expo were expected, with about 3.5 million of them international.
“We will have the business matching opportunities, so we do hope that people from Hong Kong, from the private sector and the business sector, will come and visit the Expo,” Jimi said.
The Osaka World Expo has faced mounting costs over the last year, with an estimated 235 billion yen price tag – almost double its initial budget of 125 billion yen.
Jimi said the budget rise was because of a 28 per cent jump in the cost of construction materials and a 10 per cent increase in labour costs over the past two years.
She added the Covid-19 pandemic had shortened the preparation time from five to four years and some countries faced problems in the construction of their showcase pavilions.
But she said only four of the 161 countries had yet to finalise the construction details, while the others had begun or completed their pavilions.
Jimi added that the pavilions being built by the Japanese government and private sector were “going smoothly”.
She admitted Japan had suffered from overtourism in recent years and authorities had been forced to introduce special measures to tackle the problem, such as setting daily quotas on the number of visitors to the landmark Mount Fuji.
Jimi said the Japanese government still had “a lot of room for improvement” and highlighted the need for more English and Chinese signs for tourists.
She added Japanese authorities were also working to encourage better manners and public behaviour by international tourists – such as not littering.
But Jimi said that Hong Kong tourists did not cause such problems.
Statistics showed Japan had more than 3 million visitors for a third month in a row in May.
Arrivals were up 60 per cent on the same period last year and 9.6 per cent higher than in 2019.
