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Japanese tourist numbers hold steady

The number of Japanese tourists making bookings to visit Taiwan during the upcoming “golden holiday” between the end of this month and the beginning of next month remains at the same level as that posted last month, a leading travel agency reported yesterday.

A survey conducted by the JTB Tourist Agency found that 33,000 Japanese have made reservations to travel to Taiwan for the “golden holiday” between April 25 and May 5 — the same number as last year.

In comparison, the number of Japanese tourists heading to China during the same period declined by 20 percent to 75,000 people from last year’s 94,000, the JTB survey showed.

JTB, which is Japan’s largest travel agency, attributed the sharp decline mainly to the poisonous Chinese dumplings incident that occurred in Japan late last year and the ongoing Chinese military crackdown on Tibetan protesters.

JTB conducted the annual survey among Japanese citizens aged between 15 and 79 recently and obtained 1,200 valid responses.

The agency also found that 458,000 Japanese have made bookings to travel overseas during the holiday, representing a year-on-year decline of 14.6 percent from 536,000 last year.

The agency attributed the decline to a difficulty getting vacation time from work and prohibitively expensive air tickets as a result of skyrocketing international oil prices.

China is the top destination, followed by South Korea, which has attracted 74,000 people and Hawaii, which has attracted 34,000.
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