Tourist store on the Nakamise shopping street near Sensoji temple in Tokyo on April 30, 2024 (AFP/Yuichi YAMAZAKI)
Japan at unbeatable prices… for tourists. The archipelago is seeing a record number of foreign tourists, whose consumption is boosted by the current weakness of the yen, which fell to record lows against the dollar and the euro on Monday.
“I bought three pairs of shoes, which I absolutely never do. It was really worth it because of the exchange rate,” rejoices Katia Lelièvre, a 36-year-old French tourist interviewed by AFP in the neighborhood tourist attraction in Asakusa, Tokyo.
“I came five or six years ago and I remember that prices were significantly higher than today, particularly for cosmetics and clothing,” adds Dominique Stabile, an Italian tourist.
She says she spent a lot of money sampling Japanese cuisine, which is also “very cheap. I tried everything I wanted.”
“The weakness of the yen clearly plays a role in the volume of spending by tourists,” thinks Saori Iida, a saleswoman in a second-hand kimono store in the neighborhood.
“A lot of people do the math and when they see the equivalent in their country’s currency they say: ‘oh hey, I’ll take that too’.
“Yesterday, we had someone who bought 15 kimonos,” she notes.
Yuki Suzuki, a saleswoman in a nearby store selling Japanese knives, says she sees “now more customers who buy a little more”, for example purchasing series of blades made by the same craftsman instead of one piece.
The Japanese archipelago welcomed some 3.1 million foreign visitors in March according to the Japan National Tourism Office (JNTO), an absolute record over one month, notably attributed to the cherry blossom season and the exchange rate. advantageous.
– Prohibitive prices for the Japanese –
And average spending per person by foreign tourists increased between January and March by 52% compared to the same period in 2019, the pre-pandemic reference year.
Tourists in kimono take photos near Sensoji Temple in Tokyo on April 30, 2024 with the Tokyo Skytree broadcast tower in the background. Photo taken on April 30, 2024 (AFP/Yuichi YAMAZAKI)
A bowl of ramen noodles for 1,000 yen then cost 8 euros, compared to 5.8 euros at the start of the week. And a luxury watch which cost the equivalent of 5,600 euros in 2019 is “no longer” worth more than around 4,000 euros, tourists can also benefit from a tax refund by presenting their passport.
According to statistics from the Japan Tourism Agency, Australian holidaymakers are the biggest spenders, followed by the British and the Spanish.
If the situation is to the delight of traders, it is however weighing on the consumption of Japanese households, in constant decline since March 2023, while the Japanese see their purchasing power weakened by inflation and the weakness of the yen, linked to discrepancy between Japan’s accommodative monetary policy and those observed in the United States or Europe.
Japanese media have also recently been surprised by the opening of new restaurants with prices resolutely aimed at tourists, prohibitive for a Japanese salary in yen.
– “Untie the purses” of tourists –
Even beyond exchange rate effects, “for many tourists, Japanese products and services in Japan may seem inexpensive, especially for the quality they can receive” in exchange, said Akiko Kohsaka, a tourism economist. at the Japan Research Institute.
Tourists visiting Sensoji temple in Tokyo on April 30, 2024 (AFP/Yuichi YAMAZAKI)
But the cheap yen “can be a factor in encouraging spending”, helping to “loosen people’s purses. For example, tourists can choose to stay in better hotels than expected, to stay in Japan one more day or buy branded items,” adds Ms. Kohsaka.
Frenchwoman Katia Lelièvre, who is already making her second trip to Japan this year, agrees that “if it hadn’t been for this advantageous exchange rate I don’t think I would have come back.”
“I think Japan can have confidence in itself as a tourist destination,” emphasizes Ms. Kohsaka. “Even if the yen reverses its trend, I don’t believe it will lead to a sharp drop in tourist spending,” she said.
© 2024 AFP
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