After assessing the situation in Japan, the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) reaffirms that the vast majority of the country is safe to travel to. Nearly all the country is operating as normal, with the exception of the locally impacted tsunami area in the vicinity around the Fukushima nuclear plants.

PATA’s Strategic Intelligence Centre notes that inbound and outbound travel has also shown encouraging recovery signs.

The Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) estimates that outbound travel from Japan has dropped by around 3.6% over the last five months. However, a number of destinations in the Asia Pacific region are defying the odds and actually boosting their market share of Japanese arrivals. Even with this decline in outbound traffic Japan has generated close to 6.4-million departures in the five months to May 2011.

Countries that have boosted their market share of Japanese travellers include Thailand, Sri Lanka, Palau and Singapore. All have expanded their inbound counts from Japan with each destination showing double-digit growth rates in May relative to the corresponding period last year. Initial figures for June show this momentum continuing in Thailand, Nepal, Chile and Vietnam. Year-to-date, some 15 destinations in Asia Pacific have recorded increased Japanese arrivals, with nine of those destinations showing double-digit gains.

There appears to be some small signs of recovery in visitors travelling to Japan. The estimated foreign inbound figure for Japan in May was 358,000, up from 295,800 in April. Many Asian source markets such as Chinese Taipei, Thailand and Singapore produced better performances in May.

Nevertheless, PATA statistics show that foreign arrivals into Japan have declined 32% to May this year, a sharp reversal of the positive growth trend seen in January and February. 

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