The estimated number of foreign visitors to Japan in November increased 1.9-fold from the previous month to 934,500, government data showed Wednesday, as the country removed almost all COVID-19 entry restrictions in October.
The figure was down 61.7 percent from November in the pre-pandemic year of 2019 but surged 45.2-fold from a year earlier, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization.
The number of foreign tourists in November increased 2.5-fold from the previous month to around 732,000, boosting the overall number of foreign arrivals.
The increase came after the government removed its cap on daily arrivals and a ban on individuals and non-prearranged trips on Oct. 11.
The government lifted entry restrictions that required foreign tourists to travel on package tours and obtain a visa if they were citizens of one of 68 countries and regions with which Japan had waiver agreements before the pandemic, according to the Foreign Ministry.
In November, the biggest number of foreign arrivals was from South Korea at 315,400, followed by Taiwan at 99,500, the United States at 84,300, and Hong Kong at 83,000, according to the tourism organization.
The data showed that the number from China, whose people topped the foreign visitors to Japan before the pandemic but which had been implementing a strict "zero-COVID" policy involving lockdowns, was low at 21,000.
Meanwhile, the number of Japanese who went overseas in November totaled 379,200. The figure was 7.3 times higher than a year earlier but a 76.9 percent drop from the same month in 2019.
