Japan has found a new export industry and it doesn’t come off an assembly line. It arrives by plane, spends freely and is, increasingly, what Tokyo is banking its economic future on.
Last year, 42.7 million foreign visitors arrived in the country, a record that shattered the previous year’s high by nearly 16 per cent. Now Tokyo wants to turn that surge into something more lasting: a permanent pillar of growth to rival, or even outlast, the industries that built modern Japan.
To achieve that ambition, the government has set a target of 60 million arrivals a year by 2030, with billions being funnelled into the infrastructure needed to get there.
At Narita Airport, the main international gateway serving the Japanese capital, crews are extending the second runway to 2,500 metres (8,200 feet) and building an entirely new 3,500-metre (11,480-foot) third runway, as part of a multi-year expansion that aims to push annual capacity from 340,000 flights to half a million.
Rail planners, meanwhile, are working to nearly double train frequency between Narita and central Tokyo by the early 2030s, with new extensions set to link two lines directly to Haneda Airport to the capital’s south, aiming to make domestic transfers easier.