Tourism Boom... 7 Consecutive Months of Current Account Surplus
Koreans Visiting Japan About 5 Times More Than Japanese Visiting Korea
Japan's tourism industry surplus has reached an all-time high, contributing to a continued surplus in the current account balance. Koreans make up the highest proportion of foreign tourists visiting Japan.
According to the Japanese media outlet Nihon Keizai Shimbun, as of August, the current account balance announced by Japan's Ministry of Finance showed a surplus of 2.2797 trillion yen (approximately 20.7 trillion KRW). This marks Japan's seventh consecutive month of current account surplus. Moreover, the surplus amount is about 3.4 times larger than the same month last year.
The current account balance is divided into four detailed categories: goods balance, services balance, income balance, and current transfers balance. Among these, the surplus in the services balance was found to have contributed significantly.
Within the services balance, the travel balance recorded a surplus of 258.2 billion yen (approximately 2.3 trillion KRW) as of August. This was thanks to a sharp increase in foreign tourists visiting Japan.
In particular, Korean tourists, who make up the largest share of visitors to Japan, had a major impact. Among the cumulative foreign visitors to Japan (15,189,900 people) up to August, the number of Koreans was 4,324,400, accounting for about 28.5%.
In fact, traveling to Japan is very popular domestically. The number of tourists from Korea visiting Japan overwhelmingly exceeds the number of Japanese tourists visiting Korea.
According to the Korea Tourism Organization, the number of Japanese tourists visiting Korea in the first quarter of this year was 333,611. In contrast, the number of Koreans visiting Japan during the same period was 1,600,700. The number of Japanese visitors to Korea is only about 22% of the number of Korean visitors to Japan.
Korea's travel balance deficit is increasing. According to the Hyundai Research Institute, Korea recorded a service balance deficit of 5.55 billion USD last year, with the travel balance deficit reaching 7.93 billion USD (approximately 10.7055 trillion KRW). The travel balance deficit in the first quarter of this year was 3.24 billion USD (approximately 4.374 trillion KRW), already approaching half of last year's total deficit.
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