TOKYO >> As Japanese people gradually begin to eye international travel again after the pandemic, Hawaii remains the top dream destination for Japanese travelers, according to research by travel firms and the Japanese government.

“Hawaii remained the No. 1 destination to want to visit for the past 16 consecutive years,” said Takashi Watanabe, director of international affairs for the Japanese government’s office overseeing tourism.

But in Hawaii, industry leaders say the return of Japanese tourism has been slower than many hoped.

Watanabe said Japanese international travel is rebounding slowly after the COVID-19 pandemic and that economic challenges such as the depreciating value of the yen are playing a role. Operators in Japan’s travel agencies say stories in Japanese media about rising costs of travel in Hawaii itself are also giving Japanese travelers pause.

Hiroyuki Furukawa, manager of the Hawaii section for Japanese travel agency HIS Co. Ltd., told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, “The way that the Japanese media outlets covered the situation was overexaggerated, I would say. For example, they said a bowl of ramen is $30, which is 5,000 yen.”

Hawaii has long been a popular destination for Japanese travelers, in part because of cultural similarities — few destinations outside of Japan have as much familiar food or as many Japanese speakers as Hawaii does.

“Hawaii has been a kind of dream island for Japanese people,” said Yoshi Hase, a 50-year-old engineer who was visiting Tokyo with his son. He immigrated to the United States years ago and now lives in San Jose, Calif., and has visited Hawaii three times since. He told the Star-Advertiser that “the culture is in between the U.S. and Japan.”

“I can feel Japan if I’m in Hawaii, in terms of the food and people,” Hase said. “I see lots of Japanese faces when I’m there, and the Japanese food is much better than the mainland’s.”

Ai Shigaru, a 64-year-old doctor in Tokyo, said he’s never visited the Aloha State but that he has an image of Hawaii as the “best islands in the world,” and he would love to visit.

Yoko Hayano, chief consultant with Tokyo-based JTB Tourism Research & Consulting, told the Star-­Advertiser that Japanese celebrities regularly visit, and in some cases own homes in Hawaii, and that images of the islands are common in Japanese media. She said that “the perception of Hawaii has remained almost the same” and that it is largely seen as “compatible with Japanese tastes.”

But Keisuke Nago, a 20-year-old college student from Tokyo studying economics, said that “a trip to Hawaii seems to be more expensive than it used to be before. … Compared to the past, we find that it’s a little less attractive.” He said that while he’d love to visit Hawaii, he would more realistically gravitate toward cheaper travel destinations in Southeast Asia.

Kota Aiharu, a 21-year-old studying physics, said he will visit Bali later this year. He told the Star-­Advertiser that “the yen has really depreciated a lot, and we don’t have a lot of money, and the image of Hawaii is too expensive for me; it’s for wealthy people.”

Aiharu said he wants to swim in the ocean, enjoy nature and sample local cuisine and that “if I had a lot of money, then I’d definitely want to go to Hawaii.”

Japanese travelers already had begun shifting toward cheaper destinations before the pandemic, particularly destinations served by low-cost carriers, specifically in Southeast Asia. There also has been a shift toward domestic travel within Japan.

Hayano said the depre­ciation of the yen has revealed “a sort of polarization of the people who can go overseas and those who can’t.”

But Furukawa said all trends indicate that Japanese people want to begin traveling the world again. He noted that during the pandemic many Japanese citizens had their passports expire, and it will take time for even those who want to travel to get documents straightened out.

Japanese travel overseas began to grow rapidly beginning in 1986 as the yen’s value rose amid Japan’s growth into a global economic juggernaut. Over the decades, world events like the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the outbreak of the SARS epidemic caused fluctuations in outbound travel, but in 2019 Japan saw its largest number of citizens traveling internationally with more than 20 million Japanese going abroad, according to Japanese government data.

In 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic caused a historic collapse of international travel worldwide. Japanese travel between 2020 and 2022 was at its lowest since 1976, according to Japanese government statistics. However, 2023 saw a massive jump — from just over 2 million Japanese travelers in 2022 to more than 9 million.

Though the overall numbers are still a fraction of the pre-pandemic number of Japanese travelers, of those who are traveling, the percentage of Japanese people who choose to go to Hawaii has remained “flattish,” said Hayano. She cited a report by her firm that found that in 2002 about 9.2% of Japanese traveling internationally chose Hawaii, and in 2023 it was 8.7%. She said that demonstrates a relatively stable demand.

Data from Japanese travel agencies shows Hawaii is most popular with seniors, particularly men over 60. Furukawa said families and younger people are increasingly worried that they can’t afford a trip to Hawaii, particularly with the spread of news stories across Japanese media focusing on families who spent huge sums of money during their trips.

“We hear that hotel costs are up to 20% in Waikiki,” said Watanabe, who added, “I’ve never been to Hawaii, to be honest, but I’d love to visit Hawaii.”

However, Furukawa argued that a lot of the stories circulating in Japanese media tend to focus on people who went to expensive places in Waikiki. Though he acknowledged that going out can be pricey, he said other Japanese visitors have found ways to be much thriftier and deliberate with their spending. He said most of his company’s clients who returned said that while Hawaii was expensive, it wasn’t nearly as costly as many had expected.

“(There has) been a wide gap in the perception about going to Hawaii between the people who worked up the courage to go there and the people who are still hesitant,” Furukawa said.

Watanabe said that of Japanese people who travel to Hawaii, 40% of those surveyed said they go regularly, with 60% returning three or more times. Notably, 10% said they were going to visit relatives or friends living in Hawaii.

Furukawa said directing clients toward Hawaii’s hotels, restaurants and other businesses that cater to tourists is more than just a job for him. He previously spent five years working at his company’s branch in Honolulu and lived in Waikiki. He said that during that time he made friends and acquaintances across Hawaii — many of them working in those industries.

“So more or less, I would like to protect their jobs by sending many Japanese tourists,” Furukawa said. “I think, How I can return the favor for my friends who are living in Hawaii?”

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Kevin Knodell reported on this story as part of a fellowship with the Foreign Press Center Japan.

UPDATED: Due to a mistranslation, an earlier version of this story reported an incorrect dollar to yen rate.