Japan's inbound boom is a record. The repurchase funnel behind it is missing.
Foreign visitors arrive in record numbers, leave delighted, and say they want to keep buying Japanese products. Almost none of that proven demand is captured once they fly home. This study traces the gap end-to-end — and profiles the customer precisely enough to build the funnel that closes it, before a single ad is bought.
HGGC · Source: JNTO & Immigration Services Agency of Japan · Public data, 1964–2025
The boom
A structural shift, not a rebound
Arrivals crossed 42.7 million in 2025 — a new all-time record, well above the pre-pandemic peak and roughly 120× the level of 1964. The addressable foreign audience is permanently larger.
JNTO Visitor Arrivals, full-year 1964–2025. 2026 is year-to-date and excluded.
Volume is East Asian; the high-value audience is English-speaking
Korea, Taiwan, China and Hong Kong supply about 68.8% of arrivals. The four major English-speaking markets — where overseas e-commerce and shipping are easiest — are roughly 11.9% combined: the most addressable repurchase audience.
- South Korea2.3M
- Taiwan1.4M
- China0.8M
- Hong Kong0.4M
- United States0.4M
- Australia0.2M
- Others0.2M
- Thailand0.2M
- Philippines0.2M
- Malaysia0.1M
- Indonesia0.1M
- Vietnam0.1M
- Singapore0.1M
- Canada0.1M
- United Kingdom0.1M
- France0.1M
- Germany0.0M
- India0.0M
- Mexico0.0M
- Middle East0.0M
- Nordic Countries0.0M
- Italy0.0M
- Spain0.0M
- Russia0.0M
JNTO Visitor Arrivals by market (23 markets), 2026 year-to-date.
They come to experience Japan — not for business
Across every major market, including the US and UK, roughly nine in ten arrivals come for tourism rather than business. This is a leisure audience, here by choice to experience the country and buy into it.
- Hong Kong98%
- Taiwan97.1%
- South Korea96%
- United States94.3%
- United Kingdom90.3%
- China88%
JNTO Visitor Arrivals by purpose, 2025. Tourism as a share of business + tourism + other.
The wallet
Shopping is the fastest-growing slice — and the only repurchasable one
Every category grew since 2019, but shopping grew fastest: from about an eighth of the visitor wallet to nearly a fifth. Accommodation, food and transport are consumed on the trip and end at the airport. Shopping — cosmetics, confectionery, tea, crafts — is the one slice a brand can sell again from abroad.
- Accommodation43.4%
- Food and drink20.5%
- Shopping19.8%
- Transportation11.8%
- Entertainment service4.4%
JNTO Travel Consumption survey, each category as a share of total trip spend, 2019 vs 2025, all visitors. Survey series, not the JTA national-accounts total; shown as composition because the per-visitor amounts are an index-like survey measure.
They spend more, per person, on goods they will run out of
Spend per buyer on confectionery rose about 39% over the period; cosmetics sits higher still. These have a natural reorder cycle — you finish the box, you empty the jar — yet the trip is the only time the brand gets to serve it.
JNTO Travel Consumption, purchaser unit price by item (yen), South Korea — a mature, high-frequency market. The 2020–2022 survey gap is bridged.
The loyalty — and the leak
Japan already manufactures repeat customers
Only about a third of visitors are first-timers; 64.9% have been before — many five, ten, twenty times. The loyalty exists. It is expressed by flying back to the country rather than by reordering the product.
- 1st35.1%
- 2nd14.2%
- 3rd11.6%
- 4th7.5%
- 5th7%
- 6th to 9th9.6%
- 10 to 199.2%
- 20+5.8%
JNTO Facts on Trips to Japan, number of visits, all visitors, 2025.
More satisfied, and more likely to return, every year
Across all visitors over fifteen years, satisfaction reached 97.4% and intent to revisit 97.1% — both at all-time highs and still climbing. Goodwill toward the experience, and the products inside it, has never been stronger.
JNTO Satisfaction with Visit to Japan, top-two-box %, all visitors, 2011–2025.
The leak
Each measure is a different JNTO question, so this is a demand ladder, not a single funnel. But the shape is unambiguous: every rung is strong until the last, where the overseas repurchase path collapses to near zero.
- Arrive42.7M
A record audience discovers the brand
- Satisfied97.4%
The experience lands, across all markets
- Want to return97.1%
Stated loyalty is near-universal
- Repeat in person64.9%
Two-thirds have come before
- Repurchase home~0%
No overseas funnel exists for most brands
Composite of the measures in figures 01–07. The final rung is the structural gap HGGC quantifies and closes per brand.
The customer
A mainstream adult, not a niche
Across the US, UK, Canada and Australia, 4.7M entries in 2024 span the full adult range and split almost evenly by gender. The core is 25–44, but the tails are heavy — broader than the East-Asian visitor base.
Immigration Services Agency of Japan, entries by age & gender, 2024. English-speaking markets combined.
Mostly with the people they buy for
Family, partners and friends dominate; a quarter travel solo. The gift and household-share dimension of any purchase is real — what they discover, they discover alongside the people they would reorder for.
- Family31.4%
- Solo23.1%
- Friends21.1%
- Spouse / partner18.9%
- Colleagues4.4%
- Other1.1%
JNTO Facts on Trips to Japan, travel companions (% selecting), all visitors, latest year. Multi-select.
Overwhelmingly independent
87.2% arrange the trip themselves rather than on a group tour. This is a self-directed consumer making their own choices on the shelf — not one being shepherded through a fixed itinerary.
- Fully independent87.2%
- Group tour9.6%
- Package (individual)3.2%
JNTO Facts on Trips to Japan, travel form (% of visitors), all visitors, latest year.
Long enough to form a habit
Most stay between four and thirteen days — ample time to discover a product, use it daily, and miss it once home. The trip is a free trial the brand never follows up on.
- <3d7.9%
- 4-6d43.2%
- 7-13d33.7%
- 14-20d9.6%
- 21-27d2.3%
- 28-90d2.2%
- 91d+1%
JNTO Facts on Trips to Japan, length of stay (% of visitors), all visitors, latest year.
Discovery & behaviour
Discovery happens on a physical shelf
Convenience stores, department stores, drugstores, airport duty-free — the rooms where a foreign customer first picks up the chocolate, the skincare, the tea. None has an online equivalent reachable from home.
- Convenience85.3%
- Department59.4%
- Drugstores59.2%
- Airport duty-free55.3%
- Supermarkets50.4%
- Tourist souvenir shop36.2%
- Discount27%
- Fashion boutiques26.7%
JNTO Travel Consumption, shopping location (% of shoppers), all visitors, 2025. Multi-select.
But the planning was digital all along
The same visitor researched the trip through social media, video and personal blogs far more than official tourism sites. The audience is reachable digitally — the brands simply aren’t present in those channels after the trip.
- Social media43.3%
- Video (YouTube etc.)39.6%
- Personal blogs23.9%
- JNTO site12.2%
- Accommodation site11.1%
- Review sites11%
- Booking site10.5%
- Airline site8.8%
JNTO Facts on Trips to Japan, information sources used (% selecting), all visitors, latest year. Multi-select.
What they want most is to keep consuming
Asked about a return trip, eating Japanese food (70.7%) and shopping (54.2%) top the list — ahead of scenery and culture. The intent to keep consuming is explicit; only the mechanism is missing.
- Eat Japanese food70.7%
- Shopping54.2%
- Nature / scenery52%
- Hot spring51.4%
- Walk shop districts37.6%
- Stay at a ryokan33.5%
- Japanese alcohol31.8%
- Seasons30.7%
JNTO Facts on Trips to Japan, activities done this trip vs. desired next trip (% selecting), 2025. Multi-select.
Primed for cashless — and for e-commerce
Cash still leads, but three in four already pay by card, and transit-IC and mobile payment are now firmly established. The friction of paying a Japanese brand from abroad is a solvable one, not a behavioural barrier.
- Cash92.3%
- Credit card75%
- Transit IC (Suica)36.2%
- Mobile pay20.9%
- Debit card6.6%
- e-money (Edy etc.)0.4%
JNTO Travel Consumption, payment methods used (% of visitors), all visitors, 2025. Multi-select.
Where & when
A handful of gateways carry the flow
Narita, Kansai and Haneda dominate arrivals. Brand sampling at and around these gateways reaches a vast share of all visitors — but, again, only while they are in the country.
- Narita10.9M
- Kansai9.5M
- Haneda6.3M
- Fukuoka3.4M
- Shinchitose1.7M
- Chubu1.5M
- Naha1.4M
- Sendai0.2M
Immigration Services Agency of Japan, foreigner entries by port, 2024.
Attention concentrates — the regional brand's problem
Half of all visitors touch Tokyo; Osaka, Kyoto and the Narita corridor follow. Outside this golden route, visit rates fall away fast — a premium brand from a less-visited prefecture gets almost no in-country discovery at all.
- Tokyo50.8%
- Osaka41.3%
- Chiba35.1%
- Kyoto29.7%
- Fukuoka11%
- Kanagawa9.3%
- Nara9%
- Yamanashi8.1%
- Hokkaido7.3%
- Aichi6.9%
JNTO Number of Visitors by Prefecture, share of visitors who visited each. Multi-count.
Nearly year-round, with gifting peaks
Monthly entries are remarkably even, from a winter trough near 2.7M to 3.4M in December, with a secondary autumn peak. There is no dead season — and December and autumn are natural gift windows.
Immigration Services Agency of Japan, total entries by month, 2024 (all nationalities).
The customer is already described. The funnel just has to meet them where the data says they are.
Every input an overseas repurchase funnel needs — who, where, which channel, what season, which products — is observable before a single ad is bought. This study uses public, all-market data; HGGC builds the brand- and market-specific version that quantifies your gap and closes it.
Method & sources
All figures are public, from JNTO and the Immigration Services Agency of Japan, exported 2026. Arrivals are full-year through 2025. Satisfaction, intent to revisit, shopping location and payment are all-visitor (Overall) figures. The one exception is figure 05, purchaser unit price by item, which is shown for South Korea — a mature, high-frequency market — as the per-item series available in the current export.
Behavioural items (activities, sources, companions, channels, payment) are multi-select, so they sum above 100%. The wallet split (figure 04) is shown as each category’s share of total trip spend, from the JNTO survey series — not the Japan Tourism Agency national-accounts total, and the two are never mixed here. Source data available on request.