TOKYO, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The number of South Korean visitors to Japan in July declined from a year earlier, with the drop attributed to bilateral ties being soured over issues of wartime history and trade, the government said in a report Wednesday.
According to the Japan Tourism Agency (JTA), visitors from South Korea to Japan in the recording period fell 7.6 percent on year to 561,700, owing to South Korea's economic situation and a deterioration in ties between both countries.
A wartime labor dispute between Japan and South Korea that spilled over into a tit-for-tat trade row has seen flights connecting cities in South Korea with those in Japan reduced or cancelled.
With the Japanese government aiming to attract 40 million foreign visitors in 2020, with tourism becoming a growing economic pillar as Japan faces a myriad of downside risks to its economy from a growing demographic crisis, the falling numbers of South Korean visitors will be of concern to the government here and its tourist industry.
Visitors from South Korea comprise 20 percent of all visitors to Japan from overseas, and the convenience of travel between South Korea and Japan's Kyushu region in particular has seen numbers flourish in the past.
The agency's broader figures for July, however, revealed that the estimated number of oversees visits to Japan in July reached an all-time high for any month in the recording period, rising 5.6 percent on year to 2,991,200.
JTA said China ranked top with 1,050,500 visitors, an increase of 19.5 percent, with China's Taiwan coming in third after South Korea with 459,200 visitors, a drop of 0.3 percent. Visitors from China's Hong Kong, meanwhile, dropped 4.4 percent to 216,800, the agency said.
Around 38,000 visitors came from the Philippines in the recording period, the agency said, climbing 30.5 percent from a year earlier, and visitors from Vietnam hit 40,800, jumping 21.8 percent on year.
