Japan Visas Easier For Chinese Tourists

To attract 30 million tourists to visit Japan in 2010, the Japanese government is considering further easing of restrictions on visas for Chinese tourists.

The Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun reports that specific measures include making changes to the annual income limits and issuing multiple-entry visas to Chinese tourists.

From March 2008, Japan began to issue visas to Chinese tourists in the form of "family tour group" for two or three people. In July 2009, Japan made personal tourist visas available to Chinese citizens. However, because of restrictions such as a minimum annual income CNY250,000, only 6,000 personal tourist visas had been issued by the end of November 2009, while 179,000 visas had been issued to tour groups.