Taiwan Becomes Japan's No.1 Source of Foreign Hotel Guests: 2.37M Guest Nights in FebruaryA · FULL TRANSLATION

Japan's February accommodation survey delivered a milestone: Taiwan became the largest source of foreign guest nights, logging 2.37 million at facilities with 20 or more rooms — ahead of South Korea's 2.08 million and China's 1.72 million. A market of 23 million people out-booked countries two to sixty times its size, confirming the world's highest per-capita appetite for Japan travel. The calendar helped, with Lunar New Year falling on February 17 and pushing Taiwanese and Hong Kong (671K guest nights) holidaymakers into Japan's ski season, but Taiwan's top-three position has been structural for years, built on dense flight schedules, visa-free entry and exceptional repeat rates. Where Taiwanese guests stay matters for operators: Tokyo led with 417,000 guest nights, yet Hokkaido's 315,000 nearly matched it — winter Hokkaido rivals the capital itself, with Taiwanese accounting for roughly a fifth of the island's foreign guest nights. Osaka (288K), Okinawa (186K) and Kyoto (137K) follow. The operational takeaway: traditional-Chinese booking interfaces, menus and tax-free signage are now baseline requirements, not differentiators. For Taiwanese property investors, ski-area and resort hospitality assets serve their own compatriots' travel demand — a market they can verify firsthand.