New reports clearly show that foreign visitor numbers to Japan have decreased. In fact, the reports show that numbers have slumped at the fastest rate in nearly four decades due to the global downturn. However, others point out that the swine flu fears and the very strong yen have played a very important role in this decrease as well.

The amount of international visitors to Japan in 2009 fell by an amazing 18.7 percent to just 6.79 million. This is down from a record 8.35 million tourists that were seen the year before that. A researcher for JNTO said that they believe that Japan has a lot to attract foreign tourists. However, 2009 was hit hard by the rise of the yen. This means that it was a lot more costly for foreign visitors to go to Japan than it was for Japan tourist to go to other places.

This big fall in tourism was actually the largest since 1971 when arrivals dropped 22.7 percent from the previous year. However, this was due to the fact that an international exposition was held in Osaka the year before and brought in a lot of travelers.

Now Japan’s new center left government, which took power last summer, has embarked on a quest to support the growth of tourism through public private partnerships. Foreign visitor numbers to Japan had increase over the past few decades from 2.84 million to 1989 to 4.44 million in 1999.

Japan’s largest market is currently South Korea, followed by Taiwan and China. Last year, the South Korean market plummeted 33.4 percent to just 1.59 million.