Japan has realized that to welcome 60 million tourists, something lacks: workers in the hotels

Japanese tourism does not come out of accounts. Not at least if the government maintains its goal of reaching in 2030 the 60 million of foreign tourists, considerably above record which already registered last year. An Apir study shows that reaching that goal would require that many (many) work in the tourism sector. Birth crisis and where the accommodations They already drag A personnel deficit.

Thus Japan takes risks to have to reth OMOTENASHI.

A figure: 36.8 million. 2024 was a memorable year for the Japanese tourism sector. The popularity of destiny, the Paulatina recovery of international trips after the pandemic stop and the Weakness of Yen allowed Japan to reach a New record of tourists and expense. Its flow was so high that in some regions it caused friction with the local population, as in Fujikawaguchiko, where they reached Install a screen To cover the views of the Fuji.

The figures help to better understand how the year was. In 2024 Japan received 36.8 million of international tourists, above the record reached before the pandemic (in 2019 they were counted 32 million) and with a total expenditure that exceeded the 51,000 million of dollars. 2025 has not started badly. According to the National Tourism Organization in January, the 3.8 million of foreign visitors.

An objective: 60 million. The 2024 balance is high, but Japanese authorities seem to know little. Your goal is to maintain the trend and reach the 60 million of foreign visitors in 2030, a data that expects it to arrive accompanied by an expense of billions of dollars. The goal is so ambitious that it has already caused a certain debate.

At the end of 2024 a columnist of The Japan Times He wondered If the country is “prepared” to receive that flood of travelers and in February another newspaper, The Mainichipublic An editorial in which he stated that Japan should “change the focus” of the sector to the increase of visitors. As? Going from “quantity to quality.”

One question: Is it possible? That is what they have wondered in the Asia Pacific Institute of Research (Apir). What exactly does the entry of 60 million of tourists? What size and resources should the sector have to assume such demand? To answer these issues, they basically set the muscle of the Japanese tourist tissue.

Its conclusion is curious: with the current trend and if it maintains the goal of the 60 million, the sector will find a deficit of hundreds of thousands of workers, a work emptiness that will affect hotels and food services.

A prognosis: 536,000. To be accurate the estimated workers’ deficit is 536,000 employeeswhich would mean a problem to address the flow of tourists that the Government aspires to move in five years.

Many vacancies may seem, but two trends that “throw” in the opposite sense are understood: on the one hand it is expected that the flow of tourists will increase, on the other that the templates of the hotels and food services are in 2030 a 1.9% lower than last year.

A challenge: employment. According to The data collected by The Asashi Shimbunone of the main newspapers in the country, to meet the increase in demand and compensate for the labor deficit, the level of productivity of the sector should increase 2.8% per year. Apartages, the reality is that companies face two draft challenges. One is the demographic derives of the country, which It has been for years losing inhabitants and lime its population of employment population.

The other challenge is the capacity of the sector to capture workers. Right now there are accommodations that already drag a considerable template deficit. In 2024 Nikkei spoke more specifically businesses that lack more than 20% of the labor they would really need. “We are definitely seeing a shortage of personnel in the industry,” I recognized Recently a This Week in Asia Masaru Takayama, responsible for a travel agency based in Kyoto.

“Many companies in the tourism sector had to fire personnel during pandemic and those people found employment in other sectors,” Takayama abounds. “Now tourism has returned to normal and, with more activity than ever, we have lost those people who have gone to new careers. We have lost their skills and knowledge.”

A proposal: 40 million. APIR is not limited to pointing out the personnel deficit to which Japan risks if it maintains its goal of reaching 60 million tourists. The organism also launches A recommendation: rethink that goal, reduce it to 40 million and change the approach.

Your proposal goes in The line of The Mainichi: No matter how many tourists arrive (if there are 40, 50 or 60 million) as what they do with their portfolios once they are in Japan. “Instead of focusing on the number of foreign visitors, we should encourage them to spend more,” Yoshihisa Inada points outfrom the University of Konan and responsible for the study.

A question: What would you mean? The calculations They are clear from the institute. With 40 million the flow of foreign tourists would still be 8% higher than that of 2024 and the country would continue to suffer from a labor -handed deficit in the tourism industry, but much lower: in that case APRI estimates it in around 138,000 people. To meet demand, there would therefore an increase in annual productivity of 0.7%.

Beyond the number of visitors and their symbolic value for the country, the big question is … staying at 40 million and renouncing those extra tourists would stop stopping entering a lot of money?

After all, the Government not only aspires to move 60 million travelers in 2030. He wants that farm to arrive accompanied by a tourist expense of around 15 billion yen, about 101,000 million dollars. APRI Calculate That to maintain that goal with 40 million visitors, traveler spending should exceed 227,000 yen (€ 1,400) from 2024 to 375,000 (2,300).

A conclusion: “You can”. For a little there are few doubts. “If we improve the tourist offer and increase the spending by visitor, the objective can be achieved,” confesses a Asashi. As proof, remember the increase in expenditure by foreign visitor that has already been found between 2019 (before the pandemic) and 2024; But the institute also emphasizes that the sector must improve its productivity by reviewing its operations and betting on digitalization and robotics.

On his way to reinforce the Japan tourism sector, he will have to deal with other challenges, such as the discomfort generated by the intense flow of visitors at points such as Kyotothe environment of Mount Fujithe surroundings of Tokyo or in your own Japanese capital. Another challenge is the impact of foreign tourism on the domestic market, in the displacements of Japanese that visit different regions of the nation and see how the tourist success of their country makes hotels more expensive.

A sector: aviation. It is not the first time that a study warns the Japanese tourism sector that he has a personnel problem. Last summer, in full postpandemic boom of travelers, Bloomberg warned that to reach the goal of the 60 million tourists in 2030 the country needs more pilots.

Logic is simple: receiving more people require more flights. The country has around 7,100, but the government already calculates that another thousand more will be necessary. A challenge if one takes into account that a significant number of active captains is on its way to retirement.

Image | Geoff Henson (Flickr)

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