JNTO April 2026 Read: Arrivals Fall 5.5% as China Pulls Back
JNTO’s April 2026 figures landed on May 20, and for the first time in three months the headline number went the wrong way: 3,692,200 visitors, down 5.5% year-on-year. After a record-setting March, that’s a real turn — and almost all of it traces back to a single market.
China. Mainland Chinese arrivals fell 56.8% to roughly 330,000, after Beijing issued a travel advisory late last year urging citizens to be cautious about visiting Japan. It’s a sharp reversal from the record-setting March read, where every major market was climbing. Take China out of the picture and the rest of the map is still growing. The trouble is, you can’t take China out of your revenue if you were counting on it.