Domestic overnight travel expenditure in Japan 2023, by travel purpose

In 2023, domestic travelers on sightseeing and recreational trips accounted for about 12 trillion Japanese yen expenditure in the tourism industry in Japan. Leisure travel expenditure constituted the lion’s share of the expenses recorded in domestic tourism. The tourism industry’s market size in general contracted significantly after the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, as depicted by the declining value of tourism expenditure in Japan.

Per trip expenses on leisure trips

As to be expected, overnight leisure trips cost on average multiple times more than same-day trips. For overnight leisure travel, the costliest item of the trip was the lodging expenditure, followed by expenses for transportation. Same-day trips entailed no costs for accommodation and also recorded lower expenses in all expenditure categories, resulting in a significantly lower overall price per trip.

Inbound and outbound travel expenditure

Because inbound and outbound travel nearly stopped due to efforts to bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control, timely survey data is scarce and somewhat inconsistent. However, estimates showed that both, tourism expenditure by inbound visitors, as well as expenditure by outbound travelers declined to a fraction of what they have been before the pandemic.