The number of foreign visitors’ overnight stays in hotels and Japanese inns (ryokan) increased by a whopping 48.1% in 2015 from the year before, which helped the hotel industry to achieve its biggest growth rate ever. The foreigners counted for 66.37 million nights in those establishments.

The Japan Tourism Agency released the preliminary figures on Feb. 29th, which showed visitors from overseas tend to continue to visit metropolitan areas like Tokyo and Osaka in large numbers. However, there are also clear signs that overseas tourists are expanding their trips to the countryside as well.

By municipality, Tokyo had the largest share of overnights stays among foreigners with 17,78 million stays, followed by Osaka with 9,34 million nights, Hokkaido with 5,48 million and Kyoto with 4,81 million.

Okinawa was in the fifth place among overseas visitors, who spent 3,920,000 nights in hotels and inns here.

The growth rate of foreign visitors to Okinawa was 64.0 % compared to the previous year.

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