Towns and cities all over Japan, funded either directly by the Japanese government or indirectly through private investment programs are now wondering how to attract their share of visitors.

Why doesn't the Tokyo Olympics committee follow the same good sense of its predecessors and hold the Olympics in, say, September-October? No one is saying, not in public anyway.

For the first time in 44 years, in the first half of 2015 there were more inbound tourists than Japanese going overseas. The forecast for inbound tourists for 2015 is now around 18m.

The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak in South Korea has knocked the stuffing out of the tourism industry there. Apparently the number of Chinese tourists fell by 54% in June.