Just a month after the Chinese government issued an "avoid travel to Japan" advisory to its citizens, Japan's Kansai region, a popular destination for tourists, has taken a direct hit. There are also concerns that the chill in China-Japan relations could spread to other tourist spots across Japan.
According to the Nikkei on the 14th (local time), December bookings at Zen Nihon Kotsu, based in Sennan, Osaka Prefecture, which operates group sightseeing bus tours, plunged to just 3–4, compared with 100 in the same month a year earlier.
Wang Jirong, head of Huayoung International Travel, which runs sightseeing bus tours in Osaka for inbound foreigners, also said it was "a slump on par with the COVID-19 pandemic," adding, "It will be hard to expect demand during the Lunar New Year holiday in February next year."
The lodging industry is also taking a direct hit. A hotel in central Osaka projected that with both the number of rooms booked and the average spend per guest falling in December, revenue would drop about 20% from a year earlier.
Retailers are likewise being hit. Daimaru Shinsaibashi said its duty-free sales in December are running below last year's level. Through last month, sales had been up 20% year over year, but the atmosphere changed abruptly after the end of November as Chinese tourist numbers plunged, it said.
The impact of chilled China-Japan relations appears to be spreading beyond Kansai to the rest of Japan. Air China plans to cancel its twice-weekly Sendai-Shanghai scheduled flights from the 16th through March next year. A large hotel in the Shiretoko area of Hokkaido said that Chinese tourists canceled reservations en masse for January–February, with cumulative cancellations reaching 360 since the travel advisory.
Earlier, Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said that the Self-Defense Forces could be deployed in the event of an emergency in the Taiwan Strait, rapidly cooling China-Japan relations. The Chinese government then advised its citizens to refrain from traveling to Japan, after which Chinese airlines began offering full refunds for flights to Japan.