Why don’t Japanese people like to travel to China?

Japan is China’s neighbor separated by a sea. Speaking of Japan, everyone is familiar with it, especially the Chinese. They have a lot of feelings about this country, which they can’t explain clearly and are even confusing.

As we all know, Japan is a highly developed capitalist country. According to data, Japan’s per capita GDP in 2018 was as high as 39,287 US dollars. In contrast, China’s per capita GDP was relatively much weaker, only 9,462 US dollars. Dollar.

In this regard, some people ask, in such a highly developed and wealthy country, the people should love consumption, love to enjoy, love to travel, and pursue quality of life. In addition, China is so close to Japan, and most of its products are Good quality and low price, but why do so few Japanese travel to China?

First of all, this is related to China’s social and economic development.

Indeed, compared with the number of Chinese outbound tourists, the number of Japanese tourists visiting China is much smaller. Especially in recent years, the number of Japanese tourists visiting China has gradually decreased. According to data, from 1980 to 1997, the number of Japanese tourists to China increased year by year, and from 2004 to 2007 was the peak period of Japanese tourists visiting China. In 2007, the number of Japanese tourists visiting China reached a record high of 3.978 million. After 2008, the number of tourists visiting China tended to decline due to the impact of the world financial crisis. ?Since 2012, it has declined further due to the influence of Sino-Japanese political relations.

The reason why this phenomenon occurred has a lot to do with China's social and economic development at that time. In the 1980s and 1990s, although China had reformed and opened up, its economy had achieved great development and progress. But in general, the living standards of the entire nation are still very low, and people live in poverty and backwardness. At that time, Japan had already completed industrial reform and achieved modernization.

So, when the Japanese who had a little money came to China at that time, they could be called absolute "big bosses" and rich people wherever they went. Today, after 20 to 30 years of development, China's comprehensive national strength has been increasingly enhanced, and the standard of tourism consumption has also been greatly improved.

The Japanese work hard every day, but their wages and money are still basically the same. Faced with rising tourism costs and similar tourist attractions, the Japanese wisely focus on In the Southeast Asian tourism market with higher cost performance, such as Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and other countries with relatively lower living standards. In this way, people can spend the least money and enjoy more high-quality services and material resources.

Secondly, China is not the first choice of travel destination for Japanese people.

As we all know, the relationship between China and Japan is quite special. For a long time, there have been more or less differences between the people of the two countries, which has affected the Japanese people’s interest in traveling to China to varying degrees. .

Again, the Japanese do not understand China as well as we imagined.

In 2016, Peking University’s “In-depth Research on Enhancing China’s Cultural Soft Power in External Communication” research team conducted a questionnaire survey in Japan. The results showed that the Japanese people’s awareness and interest in Chinese cultural products , The degree of liking is generally low, for example, they don’t know much about “Tongrentang”, Confucius Institute, Jingdezhen Porcelain, etc. And for a person who doesn't even know much about the basic conditions of another country, if you want him to travel and adventure in that country, this is obviously not acceptable to everyone and not everyone can do it.

Finally, the demonizing criticism of the Western media has subtly affected the Japanese.

In recent years, with the development of China's economy, politics and other aspects, and the continuous improvement of the country's comprehensive strength, there are also more and more doubts from outside. As the saying goes, "A big tree attracts the wind" and "There are many famous people," but this is not true. Some media people, regardless of professional ethics, deliberately smear and vilify China, which has also affected the Japanese people's review and view of China to varying degrees.

Evaluation

In short, although China and Japan are countries separated by a narrow strip of water, their national conditions, social customs, and ideological concepts are very different. The decrease in the number of Japanese tourists visiting China is related to many factors. Of course, the current decrease in tourist numbers does not mean that it will remain the same in the future.

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Reference materials:

"Chinese Culture in Japanese Eyes"