About 35 years ago, in New York and other metropolitan areas around the world, employees at high-end stores like Tiffany’s and Dior and Versace boutiques learned some basic Japanese and how to greet each other. Japanese tourists.

A typical 1988 New York Times article titled “Japanese Take New York” (Japanese capture New York).

“Tiffany is ready. All of her salespeople are trained in the basics of the Japanese language, including numbering. A Fifth Avenue jewelry store has stockpiled medium-sized 18-carat gold Elsa Peretti heart necklaces that, at $350 each, are the most popular item among Japanese shoppers. New York is flooded with foreign tourists again – a record number, by all indications. And special is the presence of the Japanese, who in recent years have replaced the British as New York’s most frequent foreign visitors. The British are now in second place, followed by West Germans, French and Italians. Enticed by a weak dollar, 3,018,000 foreign tourists came to New York in 1987, including more than 280,000 Japanese, and at least as many are expected this year, according to the city’s Bureau of Conventions and Visitors. When asked what they were going to do in New York, a group of 12 young women from Tokyo smiled and answered in Japanese. Their guide, Kondo Masahiro, gave a rough translation: “Eat the steak and go to Tiffany’s.”

This was the lifelong dream of many young Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s, when their country today was seen as something like China: the next great power to “threaten” the US commercially.

However, this has not always been the case in Japan. For almost two centuries the country was cut off from the rest of the world. In 1633, Shogun Iemitsu banned foreign travel and almost completely isolated the country in 1639. The only contacts were very limited trade relations with China and the Netherlands at the port of Nagasaki. In addition, all foreign books were banned. All this happened until Admiral Matthew Perry in 1854 forced the Tokugawa government to open a limited number of ports to international trade.

But several years passed while the Japanese explored the planet. In fact, they have been traveling en masse since the 1970s. With a bag on their backs, a camera around their necks, and with their “book” Chikyu no arukikata (how to travel the Earth), the Japanese were everywhere in groups or couples.

At that time, television channels constantly advertised travel packages, and banks issued “vacation loans” at very low interest rates. But why was there such madness?

One reason had to do with an emerging trend and fashion among young middle-class Japanese: the “graduation trip,” traveling with friends to Europe or the United States to experience another culture before taking on adult responsibilities in the world of work. . Their desire to travel at this stage in their lives was motivated by the realization that once they started working full-time, they would have little time for long-distance travel abroad. At the beginning of this trend, these trips often lasted three to four weeks, but since the 1990s, shorter trips of less than two weeks have become more common.

Another reason was the need to spend money on expensive Western brands out of a sense of bragging rights and competition. Typical of a 1988 New York Times article, Masado Ikenda, Hilton’s Japan Area Manager, said: “Japan has a strong sense of competition. If my neighbor has a car, then I should have a car. If my neighbor has air conditioning, then I should have air conditioning. If he was in New York, I should come to New York.”

But today things are a little different. Only 24% of Japanese have a passport and the percentage is decreasing.

Why do the Japanese no longer want to travel?

A survey conducted last year by Morning Consult showed that 35% of respondents, higher than in any other country, do not want to travel again. However, as Tetsu Nakamura, a professor at Tamagawa University and a specialist in tourism psychology and behavior, acknowledges, this result is not at all surprising. According to another survey he conducted in 2016, there are those whom he calls “passive”, that is, those who say they want to go abroad, but do not want to, and “deniers”, that is, people who are not interested in traveling . and also not to travel.

Another factor cited as the reason for their rejection is the cost of the trip. The value of the Japanese currency, the yen, has plummeted, many Japanese have not received a raise for thirty years, and inflation is reducing the value of income for many.

However, experts note a different trend. Young people who travel but go to the same place again and again, namely South Korea. Known as the “Korean wave” in Japan, the surge of interest generated by watching Korean movies and TV series began in the late 2000s. went there several times to learn its culture.

However, in addition to vacationers, the number of Japanese students who go to work in Western universities has also decreased. In particular, they grew from 82,945 people in 2004 to 55,969 people in 2016. This is partly due to the reduction in the number of young people. In addition, “the annual cost of studying abroad is about 4 million yen ($36,000),” notes Nakamura, which is prohibitive for most. Meanwhile, many people think that studying abroad is not necessary. A 2019 survey found that 53% of Japanese students were not interested in studying abroad, the highest among the seven countries surveyed.

In any case, one of the planet’s once most coveted passports has lost its charm and power, unlike the Chinese, who are keen to take the reins of power into their own hands.