Chinese Visitors Made Up Only 8% Of Foreign Tourism To Okinawa Last Year#
China's CCTV takes a look this week at Okinawa's plan to attract more Chinese tourists, who last year made up only 8% of the island's foreign visitors. As Chinese outbound tourism has increased in recent years, Japan has "rolled out the welcome mat," looking to attract more visitors by easing visa restrictions last month in a move expected to draw 150,000 more Chinese visitors per year. By 2013, the Japan Tourism Agency hopes to attract 3.9 million Chinese tourists annually, a somewhat ambitious figure that would be nearly four times the number who visited Japan last year.
While major cities like Tokyo and Osaka have the electronics and luxury goods most sought after by Chinese tourists, however, other areas in Japan haven't yet benefitted as much from the growing Chinese influx, particularly in far-flung prefectures like Hokkaido (though it did see a bit of a bump following the release of the popular 2008 Chinese film "If You Are The One" (非诚勿扰)) and Okinawa. So how does Okinawa plan to deal with this? Take a peek: