According to Nikkei Asia, data released by Japanese officials on October 8 shows that due to a sharp decline in the number of Chinese tourists, the growth rate of spending by Japanese foreign tourists has slowed down.
According to reports, a tourism surplus occurs when foreign tourists spend more in Japan than Japanese people do abroad.
However, according to statistics from the Japanese Ministry of Finance, as of August this year, Japan’s tourism surplus reached 4.45 trillion yen (approximately 28.2 billion US dollars), a decrease of 0.6% compared to the same period last year. The National Tourism Agency of Japan found that the number of Chinese tourists plummeted by 56.7% during these eight months. The total number of foreign tourists decreased by 2.7%, reaching 27.62 million people.
"The Japan Times Asia" notes that Japanese tourism surplus has declined, weakening its vital balancing role on digital import costs.
From January to August this year, Japan's digital trade deficit reached 4.49 trillion yen, exceeding the 4 trillion yen mark for the third consecutive year.
The digital trade deficit refers to the difference between the costs Japan incurs in purchasing goods and services such as music downloads and cloud applications from overseas suppliers, and its export earnings. The increasing use of generative artificial intelligence models developed overseas may be one of the reasons for this trend.
Individuals and enterprises both rely on overseas digital services, making it difficult to find alternatives," said Japanese senior economist, Yoshihiro Koike (phonetic). "Due to travel balance being affected by border requirements and other factors, it's hard to stabilize the structural digital gap."
