However, the number of tourists from China last month dropped about 45 percent from a year earlier to around 330,000. China has been the biggest source of tourists to the Japanese archipelago, with almost 7.5 million visitors in the first nine months of 2025 — a quarter of all foreign tourists, according to official figures. Attracted by a weak yen, Chinese tourists splashed out the equivalent of $3.7 billion in the third quarter. “We also hope and want to make sure that Chinese visitors will return to us as soon as possible,” he added. The government has set an ambitious target of reaching 60 million tourists annually by 2030.