There aren’t as many Japanese tourists walking the streets of the United States as there were a year ago. The latest data from the U.S. Department of Commerce, which covers the third quarter of 2009, puts Japanese travel to the United States down 10 percent to 15 percent on average relative to the same quarter in 2008, and the situation is forecasted to be grim for the fourth quarter results, as well, which are expected to show a continued decline. Seventy-eight percent of the Japan travel trade has projected a drop in fourth quarter travel results year-over-year.
And it doesn’t look better for the beginning of this year. Fifty-two percent of the travel firms in Japan that were surveyed anticipated a decrease in travel bookings to the United States for the first quarter of 2010 relative to the first quarter of 2009. Economic concerns, airfare and fuel charges and pandemic/epidemic fears were reported as the leading drivers of the travel slump for the Japanese market (for travel to the United States).
In the third quarter of 2009, 849,687 people traveled from Japan to the United States, a drop of 5 percent from the third quarter of 2008. July 2009 was particularly tough, with 244,412 arrivals resulting in a year-over-year decline of 15 percent. September was the lone bright spot, with 309,435 arrivals resulting in an increase of 8 percent – the first monthly year-over-year increase in 15 months.