00:00 John Daub: It's fascinating to see where all of the visitors that are coming to Japan, now one of the top 5-10 destinations in the world for 2025 are coming from. When you look at this chart, you see that most of the tourists are not coming from the places that we thought that they might be. When you look at the people in Asakusa or around Tokyo, sometimes it's hard to really know. Actually, when you do look at this chart, perhaps it is pretty evident. You can see the purple here is 75%. About roughly three quarters of the tourists are coming from like three or four countries. We'll dive into the information.

00:39 John Daub: Just yesterday, I think it was yesterday, the news story broke on the number of tourists that has come to Japan has increased. If you thought it couldn't get any more crowded over tourism, it's only going to get crazier. If you look at the headline here, 4,000 visitors to Japan rise 16.9% in August, led by China and South Korea. You know what? Basically, that means that remember in June, July, May, June, July and August, everyone was so scared about the earthquake or the prophecy that Japan was going to fall off the end of the earth into the Pacific and tourism was going to be over as we know it. That turned out not to be true. A lot of the people who did come in May, June, July and August are now coming. Actually came in August after the prophecy was over, started to come like the day after. It's pretty funny. So all of a sudden, trips and tours from China, in particular Hong Kong and Taiwan, from the mainland China are starting to increase. And that's a good thing for the tourism industry. I don't know if it's a good thing for all the other tourists that are out there, but tourism China, maybe get too bad of a rap. I think they're doing a lot better than they did about three, four years ago. That's for sure. Or before the pandemic, I should say. That's for sure.

02:08 John Daub: Let's dive into this article and then into the data that was released by JNTO, the Japan National Tourism Organization. But if you do go to the tourist sites around Tokyo and Kyoto, you're going to see a lot of tourists. Nothing has really changed there. This is in Shibuya. The number of foreign visitors to Japan in August grew 16.9% from a year earlier to 3.9%. That's a lot of tourists. And the number of tourists is going to be 3.4 million a record for the month. That is, I expected 4 million, but because of that prophecy, I think the numbers are a little bit down. I bet you it really goes up in 2026. On the back of increased flights from Asian countries, governments estimate show on Wednesday that government would be JNTO. Travel from Hong Kong, South Korea recovered after a drop the previous month in July on the social media rumors that Japan would suffer a natural disaster.

02:58 John Daub: By country and region, China topped the list with 1 million visitors, up 36.5%. No surprise there. Followed by South Korea at 660,000, up 8%. And Taiwan, 620,000, up 10%. Taiwan is not a massive island, but it's really incredible how many visitors in Taiwan. And the relationship we have between Taiwan and Japan is really strong. So I know in Shikoku, Kyushu, you might not see them all in Tokyo. But Taiwan is... But the visitors here, they might be the tourists that you think are Chinese tourists. They're actually from Taiwan. They're a little bit different than mainland China. And Hong Kongers as well. Hong Kong logged an 8.6 decline in August, improving from 36.9%. That's where most of the prophecy rumors were coming out of apparently from Hong Kong in the first eight months. So it looks like it's getting better.

04:00 John Daub: For me, as somebody who loves the details, the details. The numbers don't lie. There's an increase in tourism year after year after year despite things like, you know, a natural disaster impacting very greatly the number of tourists from neighboring countries. Those from the Western countries that came to Japan this past summer probably got a better experience, a less crowded experience than would have been the case had this prophecy not been told or announced so publicly. And the result of it is... The result of it was that you got a treat kind of because I think 2026 is going to be quite a crowded year. It looks like it's going to be quite a crowded year. Well, duh. Tourism is mostly driven by whatever country is closest with the population with spare cash. It's not always apparent. That's true. But Japan is an island. So it's not always apparent like that. It's not like Germany where you have land where people can just drive into Japan. It has to do with the airports and the ports of call. So tourism to Japan, I think before Japan was such a tourism boom, the numbers were way down. And I don't know how much this is going to impact because we do...

05:12 John Daub: Let's get into the numbers here, okay? Let's do this and I'll talk about it. I love the critical comments too. There's usually some truth into there and it's worth talking about. Ramsey Silent, 63 months, thank you. So I kind of went through the data here. Just kind of clicking on the totals. You can see South Korea has 19.3%. That's our closest neighbor, I would say. China has 29.7%. They're fairly close but Korea is much closer. But the population of China is just massive. So that explains China. It's kind of fun to click on this graph. And here's Taiwan with 18.1%. So when you look at the whole total of East Asia, which I think includes Thailand and Vietnam and other countries, that's like three quarters of the tourism to Japan. So Westerners make a relatively small percentage. And East Asia does not include places like Indonesia and the Philippines, which is also really close. I would have thought that the Philippines would be in this. If so, this would put us closer to like 80% because the Philippines draws quite a significant number of people. Europe and Nordic countries, I'm going to pause it there, they only make up, the Americas and Australia, only make up 15.3%. That's really fascinating to me because 524,000 tourists, the majority of that come from the United States. Europe makes up just a fraction of tourism to Japan. And I know there's a lot of, I can tell based on my Patreon supporters, kind of the breakdown of the visitors to Japan, I don't get a lot of support on Patreon from the neighboring countries because I do the shows in English. But based on this, the 524,000 visitors here, there's a lot of, it's pretty similar to the breakdown that you see in this graph. United States at 194,500 people came. That's a lot of flights in. A lot of that came from Hawaii. I wonder if we broke it down by state, how that would play out. And the Philippines had about 44,200 people in there. So that's a pretty significant amount.

07:25 John Daub: If we break it down even further here, January to 2024 and January 2022, you can see that it's just gone up quite a big percentage. And then when we hit to June, this is where the prophecy hit. And then you see like the percent of increase is much more, is much smaller. That is a direct correlation to the prophecy of this past summer. And I covered that. I went out on the day that they said July 5th, and then they said it wasn't July 5th, it was July 21st. And then July 1st or something. And nothing happened on that day either. So this really hurt the numbers for 2025, which makes us believe here that 2026, I bet you all the numbers are going to be in the fours. And that would mean that four times, 4 million times 12 is 36. What is that? 36 million. See four times 10 would be 40. No, I was wondering if my math is off. It'd be like 40 million, 48 million tourists, right? Four times 12, 48. Yeah, carry the one. So I think next year, Japan hits 50 million tourists, unless a natural disaster occurs, because we could have an earthquake or something happens, or there's a pandemic again or whatever. I don't know what's going to happen. But if the year is a normal year, we're going to have 50 million tourists in Japan. Just based on the trend, the increases from year on year, more people from China are going to be coming to Japan. More people from the United States seem to be coming to Japan. More people are coming to move to live in Japan. And this is something that you need to plan for. So if you're considering to come here as a tourist in 2027, it makes a lot more sense to come earlier because you know it's going to be, when the numbers get over 50 million, we're really going to feel it. It's going to feel a little bit different than even 38 million. Which is what we're probably going to get close to this year. That's an extra 12 million tourists. That's an extra, I would say, million tourists a month traveling around. And the majority of those tourists are going on the golden route between Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto. A lot of the Chinese tourists are coming in though by cruise ship. So there are other modes of transportation to get here. I would recommend a Japan cruise. I'm thinking about taking one of these just to experience it. It goes around the entire country. The entire island of Japan, stopping in ports of call like Yonago, Sakata, which I talked about yesterday. Goes up to Niigata, Hokkaido. It'll stop off in Otaru, I think, where you can get some good uni and ikura. It goes around Hokkaido, the Sea of Ohotsuka. I think it'll dock in Abashiri. So it starts to dock in ports that you've probably never heard of before. Thank you, Alexander. I just got a donation on Patreon. I appreciate that very much. I just saw the notification.

10:34 John Daub: Yeah, you know, everybody who's coming to Japan for the first time and does the Golden Route, it's not going to feel the same next year. It's going to feel worse, more crowded, and it's already super crowded in Kyoto. So I highly recommend, my recommendation for those planning trips in the summer of 2026, that you spend more time out in the countryside and find alternative places compared to spending more time in Kyoto. You probably have a decent experience, but when you go to places like Fushimi Inari, where the 10,000 torii gates are, it is very narrow to walk around from this small station, which is not meant for that many people, to get there and back. And it's kind of a headache, to be honest with you. And it sucks out that connection with nature you're supposed to feel when you go to a place like Kyoto. So these tourism numbers, when you look at the trend year on year, you start to get an idea of what the next year is going to look like. And it looks like it's going to be a monster year for Japan, the country of Japan. I want to show this data really quickly before we sign off here. The signal might be going in and out, I apologize. I don't know what's going on here, but it happens from time to time.

11:53 John Daub: These are the statistics from January to August of Japanese tourists traveling outside the country. And if we look at this number, we have more tourists, the percentage of tourists coming in is not as great as the tourists going out. And these numbers have been low. These numbers were much, much higher 10, 15 years ago. But these numbers were low last year, and they've gone up a little bit because wages have gone up a little bit and just Japanese have been saving up for more time to get an international trip in there. I don't know if these numbers are going to go up for 2026. I think they're going to stay pretty much the same. But the year-on-year increase on domestic tourists leaving, Japanese tourists leaving, is not good. So this spells a lot of trouble for Guam, for Hawaii, for places that have relied on Japanese tourism. The numbers are way down. But it's a good thing that it's gone up a little bit, but it's certainly not in the way that we would hope for neighboring countries. Japanese tourists are not going to, Japanese tourists are going to places like Korea, probably going to places like Hong Kong, to neighboring countries more. But they're picking probably budget locations. Korea might be a little bit cheaper than Japan in that way. So maybe Korea is going to be seeing more of these tourists. And Hawaii is not, because Hawaii is more expensive, because the exchange rate is not good. So Hawaii and Guam are probably going to get the short end of this small increase. But it's still very telling to see the numbers here on Japanese that are leaving the country.

13:26 John Daub: Just a tidbit here. I see the signal is not that great. Maybe I'll pull back away. I don't know what's going on here. It just happens sometimes. This is... I just want to make sure that I'm not going to show this for a second. This is the McDonald's. They had two days ago, and I missed it. Was it two, three days ago? They had, you know they have chicken McNuggets, right? McDonald's had shrimp McNuggets. And I love Ebikatsu, which is like deep-fried breaded shrimp cutlet. They had shrimp McNuggets. It's like, oh my God, I'm not a huge fan of McDonald's, but when they do these funny stuff, these campaigns, I kind of like to try it. I really regret not being able to get these shrimp McNuggets, but maybe they'll be back again because they're really popular with the Japanese. And I don't know. You don't really hear about these campaigns right away. So when I do, sometimes it's just too late. It's a reason to follow McDonald's Japan on Twitter or X or whatever it's called today. So the Japan shrimp McNuggets, I missed it, so I'll have to look for it for next year. If you have any questions, you can leave them in the comments. I'll try to take one question here. Are you going to do an Ask Me Anything soon? I plan on doing a stream about the JET program with Laura, but she's in Sendai. I kind of timed it wrong. So she's going to be here next Friday, and we're going to sit down for an hour livestream talking about the JET program and her experience trying to get into it, her desire to want to live here in Japan and some of the challenges that she has faced. And by talking about it, maybe we can find some solutions for everybody. I think it's kind of a good thing to talk about for sure. Lauteria used to have great ebikatsu. They did. Lauteria and McDonald's Japan are the two probably biggest fast food burger chains. Moss Burger is like mid-range, I would say. But the signal is going in and out, so the chat might be a little bit slow. I'm not really seeing it. Scroll through here. But yeah, you know, Lauteria has some interesting products. They have some interesting burgers. But the other chains are starting to grow. And Wendy's, for example, I'm seeing more branches open. Burger King is sort of niche. I think it's more aimed to international tourists than it is actually to Japanese. They're not in as many locations. So McDonald's and Lauteria are the two biggest burger fast food chains with Moss Burger being mid-range and there's a couple of other places that are really popular.

15:31 John Daub: Shadow Sweepers here. I flew to Colorado from Okinawa today. After two and a half weeks and had a wonderful time and want to come back soon, hopefully in 2026. I just got a message from somebody who left from Denver Airport who's coming here for 40 days. One of my Patreon supporters, Alex. So a lot of people are coming from the central part of the United States, which is pretty amazing, from the mountain region. I'm glad to hear that you had a really great time. Two and a half weeks is a pretty good sweet spot for visiting Japan. And I'm glad you made it to Okinawa and tried some of the foods there.

16:00 John Daub: So much cheaper to fly from nearby. It's another thing, like if you can find... The flights from Korea are so cheap. If you can find a cheaper flight, like if it's like 30% cheaper to Seoul and then to hop on a puddle hopper to Haneda, that makes... or to a regional... Because Korea has a lot of regional flights in. You could fly into like Yamagata or Aomori or like regional airports. That is actually a pretty smart idea. And you get a chance to experience Korea. Seoul, Korea is such a vibrant city. And then you'll be able to compare it with Tokyo. I think Seoul, there's so... The street food scene in Seoul is so much better in my experience. It's a little bit cheaper. I love Korean food. It's hard. Kanai and I were just talking about it. We got to make a trip to Korea. It's just... Give our neighbors some love because if Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, all of them, all Singapore, if we could all work together better in East Asia, I think that this would be so much better, more of an economic powerhouse. But there's history involved there.

17:51 John Daub: One thing I think that could keep the Chinese numbers down is they just released a World War II video, a movie in China about the chemical warfare experimentation that was going on during World War II. I think it might have to do with Rabbit Island. I'm not sure. But that movie was released. So these kinds of movies, I mean, I don't think it's going to sway people's opinion of Japan because this is 80 years ago. It's just a historical piece. Japan is not the same country as it was then. Most of my friends, they're all pacifists. They don't want any war. Most people, most Japanese friends I have, I ask them like, do you want Japan to be a superpower? They're like, no, no interest. They're kind of happy. And the constitution is so much different. I think it's a little bit different. It's a little bit more different than it was before that. So it's not the same country. But these kinds of movies here, like when, if Japan makes a movie that highlights the bad history between the two countries, and there's no denying that it took place, all this stuff, but it also brings up a lot of bad stuff as well. And then I think it's important for kids to learn the history of what happened in World War II. But also to learn that this is history. This is in the past. And we've all moved on from it. But that movie is probably going to stir up some nationalism. But it doesn't seem to be declining the numbers of tourists from mainland China coming here to Japan. I just don't like it when there's vandalism. And we had tourists from mainland China vandalizing Tokyo or they're scratching things into shrines. And one tourist wanted to hurt Tokyo so that they could go back and they kept the water running the entire time to waste water. And the hotel caught them. There's a piece in the news about five years ago about stupid things. Taking food and wasting it. When you have this kind of nationalism of something that happened so long ago, we're talking generations ago, I really hope that we're all kind of past that. And that includes China. But the movie looks like it's going to get a lot of people watching it in China.

19:51 John Daub: So I don't know. I haven't seen it myself. Maybe it'll get on Netflix. Who knows? They need to make it an equivalent to the EU. REO, I missed that one here. I was in Beijing and Guangzhou in March of 2025. Half the TV shows in the hotel were about China fighting Japan. There is a lot of nationalism. I think a lot of it is political. But I think the everyday Chinese person is not as charged up about it as what's on the TV. And everybody kind of takes it with a grain of salt. Because there's already been enough Chinese tourists that came to Japan to visit and had really wonderful times here. And every time I go to China, I have an amazing time too. It's like this geopolitical thing. It's the same within the news media in the United States. Everybody knows that mainstream media is left. But in the election, you still have the right winning. So not everybody, believes or is influenced by the mainstream media. Not everybody is influenced in China by the propaganda that they see on TV. Not everybody is influenced by the negativity on Japan. I think too many people have a connection with China. A connection with Japan. A business partnership with Japan. Because the travel flows so much between the two, it's actually unchanged.

21:17 John Daub: Alright guys, I gotta go. If you have any questions, leave it in the comments below. But I'll see you in the next live stream. Thanks guys. See you.

21:45 John Daub: It's a beautiful spot. The weather has changed. The humidity has completely gone away.