Do you think JNTO's goal of 10 million inbound tourists to Japan by 2010 will be achieved?

[Liam B]

Just wondering what everyone thinks of JNTO's goal of getting 10 million tourists to Japan by 2010, and then on to 20 million in 2020. Do you think that, looking at current numbers and trends, it is achieveable, or even conceivable?

Reasons for:
- The tourism board has set up a Facebook and Twitter account to reach and attract people
- 2010 has been announced as a 'Visit Japan' year
- A new 'Visit Japan 2010' website has been launched
- Increased tourism budgets
- London Underground advertising campaign
- Competition held for US citizens
- Information packs being sent out to the US citizens who took part in the contest
- Pop culture (Anime, Manga, music, video games, movie) interests increasing abroad
- English more widely used
- Growing Asian market

Reasons against:
- Cost of a trip there is very high
- Considered a racist nation by some
- Peoples perceptions are different from the actual place
- Language barrier
- Too confusing a place
- Options of cheaper package holidays (especially popular in Britain)
- Lack of interest
- Youth (particularly in my country) deteriorating e.g. spending all money on drinking etc
- The ones with the strongest interest in going are too young to do so, and by adulthood, may have changed their minds
- It has taken 3 years (2004 - 2007, about 6 million to about 8 million) in the past to achieve the 2 million tourists they need to hit the 10 million mark, while they now expect to do that by the end of this year

[thecheapest902]

It's no way achievable now.

Did you check the number of tourists who visited Japan in 2009? It fell dramatically from 8.4M in 2008 to 6.8M in 2009. This is because of global recession and yen's sharp rise.

I think it's impossible to have 10M in 2010 as the economy does not recover much.

[majiuzzei]

As long as the yen is raping other currencies there is no chance. I officially hate the yen right now cos I saved money in a different currency before coming here and its only worth half the price it was 2 years ago. As long as the yen is ridiculously and unrealistically strong I would be dumbfounded as to why even one tourist would want to come here at the moment.