Foreign tourists are seen in the Ninenzaka area in Kyoto’s Higashiyama Ward on April 20, 2023. (Mainichi/Kazuki Yamazaki)
KYOTO — Kyoto Prefecture saw a record 75.18 million tourists in 2023, up 13% from the year prior, the prefectural government announced on July 23.
The 2023 figure topped the previous record of 74.3 million marked in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic.
The main factors are believed to include the Japanese government’s downgrading of COVID-19 to the same level as the seasonal flu in May 2023 and an increase in foreign visitors due to the weak yen.
Because tourist numbers were not released for the city of Kyoto in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, prefecture totals were also not available. In 2022, there was a recovery seeing 66.68 million visitors to the west Japan prefecture.
In 2023, the city of Kyoto saw 50.28 million visitors, 66% of the total for the prefecture. However, this remains lower than the 53.52 million it saw in 2019. In contrast, areas outside the city such as the northern region of the prefecture are reportedly welcoming more tourists.
Spending by tourists in 2023 including on lodging, souvenirs and food and beverages was around 1.66 trillion yen (roughly $10.69 billion), 25% higher than 2019’s 1.33 trillion yen ($8.55 billion). Of this, 1.54 trillion yen, or 92% of the total, was spent in the city of Kyoto. This is believed to be due to the fact that most lodging and other facilities are located in the prefectural capital.
The Kyoto Prefectural Government’s tourism office offered several reasons for the record number of visitors: more events were held in the same format as before the pandemic, discounts and coupons to promote travel within the prefecture were provided for the second year in a row, and the number of tourists from Japan and abroad increased due to the weak yen and other factors.
Visitor numbers have been reportedly on a sharp rise since fall 2023, and it is expected that 2024 will set a new record.
(Japanese original by Satoshi Kubo, Kyoto Bureau)
AloJapan.com