A long-exposure photograph captures a woman taking a photo as tourists cross a busy intersection in Shinjuku City, Tokyo on March 30, 2026. (Photo: AFP)

The number of foreign visitors to Japan dropped 2.0 percent from a year earlier in the first six months of 2026, marking the first decline for the period in five years, government data showed.

About 21.1 million people visited the country in the first half of the year, preliminary data released by the Japan National Tourism Organization on Wednesday showed, with Chinese mainland visitor arrivals more than halving.

The number of visitors from the Chinese mainland plunged 56.4 percent from a year earlier to 2.06 million, as the figure has continued to decline since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made erroneous remarks on Taiwan last November.

The total number of foreign visitors in June alone came to 3.15 million, down 6.8 percent from the same month last year, falling for the third straight month and marking the largest drop since January 2022, according to the organization.