Winter brings record variety of international tourists

In spring they arrive for the cherry blossoms. Tours for the leaves in autumn.

Now more traveling winter excursions are booking to Japan than the country's fame as First class ski destination Also attracts visitors from the Asian-Pacific area and beyond.

Foreign visitors in Japan rose by 33%of the pre -Pandemic level last winter. Around 10.5 million visitors arrived from December 2024 to February 2025, in comparison with 7.9 million in the identical period in 2018, in accordance with the Japan National Tourism organization.

Many flock to the powdery slopes from Niseko and Hakuba, which along with other ski areas similar to Yamagata and Yuzawa received a record variety of international tourists last winter.

According to Visa, visitors to the Japan exceeded skiing nations within the winter of 2023 the pre-pandemic level. It didn’t stop here – the international arrivals rose by one other 50%up to now ski season, it said.

According to Visa from Australia, 20% from the USA and 15% from Southeast Asia got here from Southeast Asia.

According to Visa, international visitors also drive expenses with the common each day expenditure greater than tripled than that of local skiers.

Nevertheless, many ski towers in Japan have problems. Those without international crowds have a falling domestic demand that has dropped by 75% because the country's flowering within the early nineties.

The variety of skiers and snowboarders in Japan fell from 18.6 million in 1993 to 4.6 million in 2023, since Japan's population decreased on the age of Japan, the birth rates decreased and younger generations found other ways to spend their free time Local media According to reports, data from the Japan Productivity Center cite.

The variety of ski areas in Japan has also decreased – from 1,669 in 1985 to 449 in 2021 – in accordance with the country's largest English newspaper. The Japan time. That includes the one Once niigata is known as prefectureLong as one in all the leading ski goths of Japan.

The Canadian Harvey Glick has been doing snowboard travel in Japan for nearly 20 years. He said, abandoned ski areas – and those that “only hang” – will be seen in rural Honshu and Hokkaido.

“I've seen an incredible change in the past 20 years,” he said. The effort is now concentrating “about foreign, international ski or snowboard travelers because they spend more than domestic, and they really try to create this luxury brand of Japan – similar to Switzerland”.

Nowhere is that this more obvious than in Niseko and Hakuba, he said, by which luxury resorts with English -speaking employees and slopes are occupied, which cause radiant word of word.

Aman Narain, in Singapore, lives Aman Narain, said that a suggestion of friends led him to book a visit to Hokkaido's Club Med Tomamu for his family's first skiing.

“Japan and Club Med make a perfect duo to learn how to ski with soft, forgiving snow and an amazing facility, especially for children,” said Narain.

The resort's rate included buoyancy and ski lessons in addition to equipment loan, “what Major was,” he said.

Narain visited in January throughout the New Year's holiday within the lunar yr and estimated that 80% of the opposite hotel guests got here from China after departure.

Japan is today the Top Ski goal for Chinese travelers on the mainland, the “the United States, who exceeded the list last year,” says ” Research of Visa.

South African Cindy the old, Anyone who went to Niseko for the primary time 22 years ago said that she and her family have been regular visitors for ten years.

“Since Covid has given an explosion in Hong Kong customers,” she said.

The prices have increased, she said, as well as the caliber of hotels and restaurants. “The restaurant scene has turn out to be quite upset. Nowadays you will have to book your accommodation and restaurants as much as a yr upfront.”

But one thing has not changed, she said: “The snow stays unbelievable.”

According to Prateek Sanghi, the head of advice and analytics in the Asian-Pacific area, Visa's data last winter almost half of all overseas visitors in Japan to Niseko. The popular ski area in Hokkaido also showed more than half of the overseas issues during the Peak Winter Ski season, he said.

But Nagano's Hakuba, which is sometimes referred to as the “second Niseko” – also wins on the ground, said Sanghi.

“Hakuba is the fastest growing cards in overseas, which is issued against the yr a yr and accounts for about 35% of visits to overseas,” he said.

This is partly the reason why Glick now says that he is now avoiding Niseko and Hakuba as a whole.

“I don't just like the latest character and the brand new culture that has developed there,” he said. “I find it quite worrying because I feel you might be blocking quite a lot of average … and even individuals with a high incoming since the prices undergo the roof.”

Many online also pressed the popularity of the resort cities. A Reddit poster in January complained about Niseko and wrote: “Huge lines for Hirafu gondolas (expected) with absolutely no type of queue lines or gates?! Only a cliffer for everybody who literally pushes its way forward.”

Another commentator wrote in response: “There are around 500 other ski areas in Japan. Many of them are practically empty.”

Here Glick said that he is now going to the snowboard.

“I'm searching for among the smaller mountains who’ve more Japanese feeling,” he said. “You don't see some other foreigners.”

The increasing international interest in Ski in Japan creates an influx of investments, since foreigners add houses and pour money into developments in the resort.

In 2023, the Patience Capital Group in Myoko Kogen, a popular ski destination in Niigata's prefecture, announced a mega resort of $ 1.42 billion. The The company is in conversations In order to reopen his fund to new investors, Reuters reported at the end of March.

But not everyone applauds the idea of ​​a “third” Niseko in Japan.

The locals fear that jobs and tourism dollars that can create the resort will not be sufficient to compensate Spikes in real estate and food pricesand a deterioration within the long -implemented cultural customs in accordance with Japan Reuters. A now viral video Posted in February shows a Japanese man who confronts smoking with an Australian tourist about smoking at the tip of a ski player.

“Many skiers from Japan also fight a bit of because they see how these cities turn out to be something aside from a Japanese ski area.” said Glick.

At the moment, he said, he sticks to independent resorts in which English is not spoken so far.

In addition, “an all -day elevator fun is like $ 35.”