TOKYO, April 30 ― As Japan gets ready to stage the Osaka World Expo in 2025, the country has never attracted so many overseas visitors, setting record after record. As a result, action to regulate tourist numbers at popular sites is already being taken.

Month after month, Japan is breaking its own visitor records. Earlier this year, the Japan National Tourism Organisation (JNTO) reported visitor numbers totalling 2.79 million international travellers for February 2024, the highest figure since the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced the closure of borders. In March, a symbolic milestone was reached, with more than three million visitors. This represents an increase of 11.9 per cent compared to March 2019, i.e., before the pandemic and when the tourism industry was operating at full capacity. In short, Japan is a popular destination! For December 2023, the country had already topped the 2.73 million visitor mark, while over the whole of last year, the tourist board counted more than 25 million overseas visitors. At the end of the year, when the totals are calculated again, the record of 31.9 million visitors recorded in 2019 is likely to be beaten.