On the evening of November 14, Chinese authorities issued an advisory urging Chinese citizens to avoid traveling to Japan for the time being.
In the first two days after the travel advisory and free-cancellation policy were announced (November 15-17), around 490,000 travelers canceled their planned trips to Japan. On November 15, approximately 1.55 million travelers were scheduled to visit Japan; by November 17, that number had plunged to 1.06 million, a 32% decline.
Most strikingly, on November 16, the number of cancellations was 27 times the number of new bookings, indicating that safety concerns have completely dominated market sentiment. Given that winter travel to Japan is largely driven by university students whose parents pay for their trips, as well as family travelers, such concerns are entirely understandable.
Cancellations continue to rise. For flights departing between November 18 and November 24, if we take the traveler count on November 11 as a 100% baseline and compare it with the number on November 18, the trend becomes clearer.
At Tokyo Haneda—a route with a high share of business travelers and therefore less sensitive to travel advisories—there was a modest increase of about 3.4%. Using this 3.4% as a benchmark helps reveal the “abnormal change” in other cities.
Tokyo’s other major airport, Narita, showed a similar pattern, with growth of around 3.0%—slightly below Haneda but still within a normal range.
However, at Osaka Kansai airport—where tourists dominate, Chinese carriers operate many flights, and there is virtually no connecting traffic—the impact has been severe. Compared with November 11, traveler numbers dropped by around 5%. Adding the typical 4% natural growth seen elsewhere, this effectively amounts to a 10% loss in passenger volume.
In cities like Sapporo, where flights are fewer and tourists make up the overwhelming share of demand, the trend is even more pronounced. Under the travel advisory, passenger numbers fell by 13.3%, meaning that one-eighth of travelers disappeared in just a few days. Considering that this is not even the peak season—when tourists account for an even larger share—cancellations during peak season would likely be far higher.
