The number of foreign visitors to Japan rose 89.0 percent in February from a year earlier to about 2.79 million as it continued to rebound from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, government data showed Tuesday, although visitors from mainland China only showed a limited recovery.

The figure represents a 7.1 percent rise from the same month in 2019 when there was no impact from the pandemic, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization.

The largest number of travelers came from South Korea at 818,500, up 14.3 percent from pre-pandemic levels, followed by those from Taiwan at 502,200, up 25.6 percent.

Mainland China placed third with 459,400 visitors, down 36.5 percent, despite having observed the week-long Lunar New Year holiday last month. Even compared with January, the result only marked a slight increase as the number of flights from the country to Japan has yet to fully restart after the pandemic.

Visitors from Hong Kong rose 14.8 percent from February 2019 to 205,900, while arrivals from the United States expanded 60.5 percent to 148,700.

The number of Japanese traveling overseas in the reporting month jumped 82.1 percent from a year earlier to 978,900 but was still down 36.2 percent compared with five years earlier.

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