“The political issues have nothing to do with me,” said Yan Shuo, a 21-year-old graduate student in Beijing who was shopping recently in Akihabara, a Tokyo district known for neon lights and stores selling electronics and manga comics. Ms. Yan said she bought an Apple iPad and Japanese cosmetics.
Though Japan has a history of viewing outsiders with suspicion, Chinese tourists are finding an open door for their money. On top of their travel expenses, Chinese buy more than ¥120,000 ($1,000) worth of goods, on average, during trips to Japan, twice as much as their nearest rivals, Russians, according to the Japan Tourism Agency.
To attract more spending, the government last October expanded a sales-tax exemption for overseas visitors, previously limited to durable goods such as cameras and rice cookers, to include consumables such as sake and cosmetics. Tax-free spending by foreigners at 46 retail outlets surveyed by the Japan Department Stores Association shot up to ¥9.2 billion in November from ¥4.8 billion in September.
Shiseido Co., the Japanese cosmetics provider, says it has at least one Chinese-speaking staff member on standby at all times at its flagship store in Tokyo’s Ginza district. After Japan raised the sales tax last year, Yodobashi Camera, a giant electronics emporium in Akihabara, turned the increase into a marketing pitch, posting signs in Chinese advertising that all items were now 8% off the price shown, instead of 5% before the tax was raised.
Tax-free sales have accounted for as much as 10% of revenue in some recent months at the Ginza Mitsukoshi department store, according to its owner, Mitsukoshi Isetan Holdings Ltd.
Guarding three extra-large shopping bags near the Mitsukoshi entrance, Xu Ke, a teenager from Sichuan province in China, showed off purchases such as a new air freshener as he waited for his mother to return from the shoe department.
“The tour bus is leaving in five minutes,” he said. “But my mother wants to keep shopping.”