Even as swathes of tourists pour into Japan in record numbers, the country’s citizens are showing less enthusiasm to venture abroad with only one in six Japanese now owning a passport, according to data released by Japan’s foreign ministry recently.
Japan issues one of the most powerful passports in the world, enabling its citizens to travel visa-free to 190 destinations. But the percentage of those owning a passport has been on the decline, falling from around 24% in 2019 to 17% last year.
A weak yen cutting into Japanese travellers’ ability to spend abroad, rising overseas prices and lower interest in international travel among younger generations appear to be factors for why passport ownership is declining in Japan, preventing a full rebound from pandemic-era lows. Ownership is also often far more common in other developed nations.
The Japanese currency has lost about a third of its value since the end of 2019, driven mainly by the wide gap in interest rates between Japan and the United States. The number of Japanese travelling abroad last year was still significantly lower than five years ago before the pandemic struck.
Japanese travellers have faced a hefty increase in cost in recent years if they want to go abroad for the summer, according to travel data provided by the Japan Tourism Agency. Last year, travellers paid on average ¥347,000 (RM10,223), while during the same summer months in 2019 they spent on average ¥277,000 (RM81,640), reflecting a 25% jump.
Those realities don’t help when real wages in the country has remained stagnant for so long. IMF figures show that per capita income in dollar terms fell to US$32,859 (RM144,719) in 2024 as the yen weakened – not much different from US$32,008 (RM140,936) back in 1992.
Passport ownership in Japan is much less common compared to the 60% of British and 50% of American nationals who own passports, according to data from the Japan Association of Travel Agents. The same data showed neighbours Taiwan and South Korea also have a higher ownership rate, with 60% of Taiwanese and 42% of Koreans owning passports.
The main reason Japanese did not travel abroad was because of financial restraints from the weak yen and rising prices, according to a survey conducted last year by JTB Corporation, the largest travel agency in the country. About 17% of respondents said they couldn’t travel because of the currency and inflation, while some 13% said they were worried about safety.