IMF Working Papers

Japan’s Inbound Tourism Boom: Lessons for its Post-COVID-19 Revival

By Anh Thi Ngoc Nguyen

August 21, 2020

Download PDF

Preview Citation

Format: Chicago

Anh Thi Ngoc Nguyen. Japan’s Inbound Tourism Boom: Lessons for its Post-COVID-19 Revival, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2020) accessed September 18, 2024

Disclaimer: IMF Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to encourage debate. The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management.

Summary

In this paper, we review developments in Japanese inbound tourism and investigate the main determinants of its rapid growth prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model with data on 34 tourism source markets from 1996Q1 to 2018Q4, we find that not only tourist income and tourism-related relative prices, also visa policies have had significant impacts on Japan’s inbound tourism demand in the long run. In the short run, natural disasters have had large and prolonged effects on tourism. We then derive policy implications for the post-COVID-19 revival of Japanese inbound tourism.

Subject: Communicable diseases, COVID-19, Economic sectors, Foreign exchange, Health, National accounts, Personal income, Real exchange rates, Tourism

Keywords: Abenomics, Asia and Pacific, Attractiveness f, Communicable diseases, COVID-19, Global, Inbound tourism, Japan inbound tourism, Origin country, Panel ARDL, Personal income, Real exchange rates, Source market, Tourism, Tourism demand, Tourism determinants, Tourism industry, Tourism inf rastructure, Tourist arrival, Tourist number, Visa policy, WP

Publication Details

  • Pages:

    32

  • Volume:

    ---

  • DOI:

    ---

  • Issue:

    ---

  • Series:

    Working Paper No. 2020/169

  • Stock No:

    WPIEA2020169

  • ISBN:

    9781513553207

  • ISSN:

    1018-5941