Chinese tourists spent $830 million in Japan during Golden Week

According to China’s People Daily, [tweetable]around 400,000 Chinese tourists visited Japan during the Golden Week holiday[/tweetable] – and spent a whopping $830 million on shopping in the country. Some reports claim that many Japanese shops opted to limit the quantities that could be purchased of certain goods to limit the risk of running out.

The international tax refund company Global Blue reported that shopping spree by Chinese tourists in Japan may have boosted the host country’s economy by as much as 0.1 percent. [tweetable]During the first half of 2015, 2.18 million Chinese tourists visited Japan[/tweetable], an increase that in part is due to the general growth of Chinese outbound tourism, but also a result of the devaluation of the Japanese Yen. Seeing a surge in Chinese shoppers, many Japanese retailers have also tried becoming more welcoming to Chinese tourists, offering Chinese-speaking assistants and signs in Chinese.

Some of the most popular products that Chinese tourists buy in Japan were toilet seats, medicine, household items and luxury products. Another sector that has seen significant growth is medical tourism to Japan, which is increasingly popular among Chinese visitors.

Photo: Yoshikazu Takada, flickr