Major events to facilitate important exchanges

Major events such as the China-Japan Cultural and Sports Exchange Promotion Year of 2020, and the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games 2020 will create a better environment for China and Japan to facilitate cultural and tourism exchanges.

The cultural exchanges between the two countries have a long history and have irreplaceable significance to enrich mutual understanding between people, said Motoo Hayashi, chairperson of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party's Research Commission for the Establishment of a Tourism-Oriented Nation.

Due to the new trend of cultural tourism in China, Japan hopes to make joint efforts with China to expand cultural cooperation in tourism, he added.

China and Japan are important outbound tourist destinations to each other, said Li Jinzao, vice-minister of China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism, stressing that tourism exchanges have played an important role in promoting mutual understanding and trust between the two countries.

The number of tourists from the Chinese mainland to Japan exceeded 8 million in 2018, and visitors spent about $14 billion in the country, according to a report by released Beijing-based China Tourism Academy's International Tourism Development Institute in March. Among them, about 70 percent were young people under the age of 35.

The number of Chinese travelers who visited Japan reached 6.58 million between January and August, jumping 13.6 percent year-on-year, data from Tokyo-based Japan National Tourism Organization show.

With a surging number of Chinese travelers taking trips to Japan, Chinese and Japanese carriers are launching more flights to connect the two countries.

During the period from Oct 27, 2019 to March 28, 2020, there will be a total of 1,406 flights connecting China and Japan, 224 flights more than the past summer flying season, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan.

China Eastern Airlines plans to launch new three-times-a-week round-trip services between Wuhan and Tokyo, starting from Jan 4 in 2020.

The carrier said it will increase the capacity and launch more flights from Wuhan to other Japanese cities to meet the demand of residents flying for business, travel and to study.

China Eastern will add to the frequency of its flights from Kunming to Osaka and make it a daily round-trip service next month.

All Nippon Airways said it will launch new daily round-trip flights that connect Tokyo Haneda International Airport with Shenzhen and Qingdao from the summer of 2020.

Flights connecting Japan and China currently account for 27 percent of total international flights in Japan.