Japanese travel overseas falls 42%

Associated Press

TOKYO — The number of Japanese taking overseas trips in November fell by a record one-year margin amid continued fear since the terrorist attacks in the United States, a travel organization said yesterday.

The decline of 41.9 percent in November from the same month a year earlier was larger than the 36.1 percent one-year plunge recorded in February 1991 during the Persian Gulf War, the Japan National Tourist Organization said.

In all, 890,000 Japanese traveled overseas in November, down 642,000 from the previous year, the government-affiliated group said.

JNTO spokesman Hitoshi Sato said fears of air travel after the Sept. 11 attacks caused many Japanese to stay home.

The news correlates with the decline in Japanese arrivals in Hawai'i. Since Sept. 11, the rate of Japanese tourists arriving in Hawai'i has been down almost 50 percent from a year ago.

Japanese arrivals improved slightly in December with an influx for the Honolulu Marathon, but have fallen back to about 50 percent of where they were a year ago.

Sato said that there were no immediate signs of improved sentiment and that declines would likely continue in coming months.

Separately, the organization said the number of foreign tourists visiting Japan fell 7.1 percent in November from the previous year to 352,000.

Fear of terror attacks also affected passengers' choice of transportation during the holidays around the New Year — one of Japan's busiest travel seasons.

A total of 384,000 Japanese took domestically owned airlines to go overseas between Dec. 22 and Sunday, down 15.8 percent from a year earlier, according to statistics compiled by three major Japanese airlines and their affiliates.

Passengers to U.S. cities fell 30 percent from the previous year.