TOKYO - The Japanese government approved in March the fifth basic plan for promoting Japan as a tourism-oriented country, setting a 2030 target of 60 million inbound visitors -- roughly 40 percent more than in 2025 -- a goal seen as unattainable without drawing more travelers to regional areas.
Sixty million visitors translates to about 160,000 arrivals per day. Assuming an average stay of around 10 days based on recent trends, roughly 1.6 million foreign travelers would be in Japan on any given day.
That figure is close to 40 percent of the 4.13 million foreign residents recorded at the end of 2025 and about 1.3 percent of the population of roughly 120 million Japanese.
Blaming "overtourism" on inbound travelers goes too far. As with crowd control at fireworks festivals, tourism-related disruption can be managed with calm, practical measures.
Sixty million visitors also implies about 320,000 people entering and leaving the country daily through airports, on top of Japanese travelers. The government aims for the number of Japanese traveling abroad in 2030 to surpass the all-time high of 20.08 million.
Japan currently relies heavily on Haneda and Narita airports in the Tokyo region and Kansai International Airport in Osaka Prefecture. But delays in building a third runway at Narita and the need to expand capacity like airport staffing mean additional flights in the capital region are unlikely to rise much in the near term. This makes the 2030 goal difficult under current conditions.
Looking at 2025 stays by prefecture using total foreign guest nights, Tokyo accounted for 34 percent of the total, followed by Osaka Prefecture at 14 percent, Kyoto Prefecture at 11 percent, Hokkaido at 7 percent, Okinawa at 5 percent and Fukuoka Prefecture at 4 percent.
Many prefectures outside the three major metropolitan areas posted room occupancy rates below 60 percent in 2025, suggesting spare accommodation capacity. Achieving 60 million visitors will hinge on whether Japan can steer more foreign travelers to regional destinations.
Drawing more travelers through regional airports would require a significant expansion of international routes, including at airports that already operate flights from China and elsewhere.
With individual airports constrained by small markets when promoting themselves to attract international services, it would be more realistic to designate a gateway airport for each regional block and connect it to trunk transport networks and major tourist sites within the area.
The biggest challenge for regional tourism is whether each area is truly an attractive place to visit and stay. I would highlight new initiatives tied to the Japan Tourism Agency's fiscal 2026 budget, which rose to about 140 billion yen ($881 million), roughly 2.4 times higher than the previous year.
Under the approach, 10 wide-area destination management organizations, such as the Tohoku Tourism Promotion Organization, would be tasked with the promotion of inbound tourism. These organizations bring together local rail operators, banks and municipalities in a "local matters handled locally" push expected to strengthen regional appeal.
Inbound visitors are not a destructive wave undermining daily life in regional communities. By boosting local attractions and improving access, both residents and travelers should become more satisfied -- an outcome that would advance Japan's goal of truly becoming a tourism-oriented nation.
(Toshiya Miyazaki, born in 1968, is a senior researcher at the Mitsubishi Research Institute. He completed a master's program at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and joined the institute in 1992. He worked on more than 150 tourism-related projects involving central government ministries, destination management organizations and private companies.)
