File photo: Tourists from Taiwan wearing Japanese traditional kimono clothes pose for a photograph amid the COVID-19 pandemic at Asakusa district, a popular sightseeing spot in Tokyo, Japan, 9 January 2023;
Credit: Reuters/Issei Kato/File Photo
TOKYO (Reuters) - Visitors to Japan climbed to nearly 1.5 million in January, the national tourism agency said on Wednesday 15 February 2023, showing an accelerating recovery in tourism after the government scrapped COVID-19 curbs in October 2022.
The number of foreign visitors for both business and leisure rose to 1,497,300 last month from 1,370,000 in December 2022, the Japan National Tourism Organization said in a release. More than a third of the arrivals were from South Korea.
Arrivals were down 44% from January 2019, before the pandemic hit.
