With the government easing the criteria for granting individual travel visas to Chinese next month, Japan is gearing up to lure more tourists from the Middle Kingdom and make international tourism a pillar that can prop up the anemic economy.
Until now travel visas have been given out only to wealthy Chinese, but starting next month the relaxed rules will allow another 16 million households — 10 times the size of the current pool of potential travelers — to apply for a trip to Japan, the Foreign Ministry said.