Chinese tourists appeal to everyone and in recent years they have become the object of desire of every country with a strong tourist vocation. In Asia, excluding Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, territories collectively referred to as "Greater China", the favorite destination is South Korea, which in 2014 was visited by 6,13 million Chinese. However, Japan is also recovering and last year saw the arrival of 2,4 million Chinese tourists, a significant figure, if one considers that relations between the two Asian powers, although recently improved, remain tense .
And yet, there has been an increase in Chinese visitors to Japan, and even an impressive one, given that until 2013 the flow from China had stopped, for a good six years, at one million visitors. Indeed, the percentage growth goes in favor of Japan, which from 2013 to 2014 gained 83% more Chinese tourists, while the influx to Korea rose by 42%. Kim Sung-eun, of the Korea Tourism Organization, admits grudgingly that "such an extraordinary result, achieved despite the difficult relations between Japan and China, is due on the one hand to the advantages of a weak yen and on the other to the aggressive campaign launched by the Japanese government to attract tourists, especially Asian ones”.
A series of initiatives have in fact been launched in the last two years, from the easing of the procedures for obtaining tourist visas, to the expansion of the range of "tax-free" products, from the opening of custom duty-free shops for certain categories of tourists, to the launch on the market of particularly attractive "all-inclusive" tourist packages.
