Inbound tourism market projected to reach 450 trillion yen

At the Tourism EXPO Japan 2026 symposium, Shusuke Ikegami, a professor at Waseda University, projected that the global inbound tourism market will expand from approximately 285 trillion yen to 450 trillion yen over the next decade. He noted that the industry is on track to rival the scale of the global automotive industry.

While Japan ranks 3rd globally in the World Economic Forum’s travel and tourism competitiveness index, Ikegami highlighted that the country is not fully utilizing its potential. He emphasized the need to transition tourism from a simple consumption activity into a “value-creating industry” by focusing on “value density”—improving the quality of visitor experiences and local economic returns rather than just increasing the number of tourists.