The China offset ran out in August: growth from every other market halved in a month

Japan's inbound arrivals fell 9.6% in August to 3,098,900, the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) reported on 16 September, and floortok covered the release the next day: Chinese arrivals down 59.0% under Beijing's travel advisory, fourteen markets at August records. The number worth a second look is one JNTO does not print. Take China out, and arrivals from every other market grew 11.3% in August, to 2,680,900 from 2,409,659 a year earlier. In July the same group had grown 22.4%, to 3,013,900 from 2,462,554. The offset that had kept the national total flat in July halved in a month, and in our view that, more than the Chinese figure, is why August turned negative.

The slowdown sits in two markets. Taiwan went from 26.4% growth in July to 7.3% in August, at 666,000 visitors, and Hong Kong from 54.8% to 9.4%, at 247,300. South Korea held close to its pace, up 28.7% to 850,500 after 31.9% in July, and the United States slipped from 3.3% to 1.5%. JNTO's market notes cite typhoon disruption to flights from all three East Asian markets, and to cruise calls from Taiwan, against continued demand and added seat capacity. South-East Asia was a different matter: JNTO describes late summer as a seasonal lull for the region and, for Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam, notes the continued popularity of travel to China as a rival destination; Thailand fell 9.3%, the Philippines 11.6% and Vietnam 7.5%. The arithmetic is unforgiving. China's 600,000 missing visitors need every other market to grow by a quarter to be covered, and in August they grew by a ninth.

Who is left, and what they do

January to August arrivals total 27,626,300, down 2.7% on 2025, JNTO's table shows. China's cumulative count is 2,904,600, down 56.7% from 6,711,851, while South Korea has reached 7,420,300, up 21.2%, and Taiwan 5,402,000, up 19.8%. A year ago China was Japan's largest August market by a wide margin; this August it was third, behind South Korea and Taiwan. The visitors who do come are staying: the Japan Tourism Agency's July lodging survey puts guest-nights by South Koreans and by Taiwanese each up 31.4% and by Hong Kong residents up 54.3%, against Chinese guest-nights down 43.0%.

For the tax-free floor the picture is better than the border, because the visitors who remain spend more per head. The Japan Department Stores Association reported tax-free sales at its member stores up 25.5% in July, with growth led by Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan. That is the pattern floortok has described since the spring: fewer Chinese tour groups, more individual travellers from the rest of East Asia with a favourable exchange rate, and a basket that has moved towards bags, watches and jewellery. August is the first month in which the arithmetic stopped working at the border. Whether it keeps working at the till is the question the stores' own August reports, due from 25 September, will answer, and July's Taiwan and Hong Kong surge was the very demand those counters were leaning on.

The calendar now turns kinder before it turns harder. September 2025 was the second-weakest month of last year at 3,267,228 arrivals, so the next comparison is soft; October 2025, at 3,896,524, was the strongest, and China's national-day week falls at its start. Two things would change the arithmetic: a lifting of the Chinese advisory, on which JNTO's release offers no signal, and the 1 November switch to a refund-based tax-free system, which changes what every visitor does at the counter rather than how many of them arrive.