Japanese media said they are not worried about the loss caused by the decrease in Chinese tourists, saying that as long as Japanese people spend an additional 14,000 yen, it can be compensated!
In recent years, Chinese tourists were the "pillar" of Japan's tourism industry - from queuing up at drugstores to buy face masks, to crowded electronics stores in Akihabara, and self-stick rods everywhere in Kyoto temples. Chinese tourists not only supported the revenue of multiple industries in Japan such as retail, catering, and transportation, but also contributed nearly 40% of the consumption by foreign visitors to Japan.
But with a statement from Hayami Sanae, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Japan dropped sharply. According to the latest data from Japan's Tourism Agency, this will cause annual losses of about 1.79 trillion yen for related industries.
Facing this gap, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan and a private think tank jointly calculated a seemingly "simple" solution: if each of Japan's 125 million people spends an additional 14,000 yen per year domestically, it could completely fill the consumption gap caused by the absence of Chinese tourists. This number sounds small - equivalent to buying one more coffee, one more bento, or one short-distance train trip per month.
But the problem is that reality is not a math problem. Japan has long been facing the issue of weak domestic demand. "Spending an additional 14,000 yen per person" may seem easy, but it actually touches the core of Japan's structural consumption dilemma.
Japan relies too much on foreign demand. If it could compensate for this loss, it would have done so already. Now it is still analyzing it seriously, which is just a way to console itself.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1852098989500416/
Statement: The article represents the views of the author himself.