Foreign guests logged 11.65 million guest-nights in Japanese accommodation in September, 9.2% fewer than a year earlier, while Japanese guests logged 41.17 million, down 0.6%, according to the Japan Tourism Agency's first-preliminary accommodation survey. The all-guest total was 52.82 million guest-nights, down 2.6%.
| Month | All guests | Japanese | Foreign |
|---|---|---|---|
| September 2026 (first preliminary) | 52.82mn (-2.6%) | 41.17mn (-0.6%) | 11.65mn (-9.2%) |
| August 2026 (second preliminary) | 62.40mn (-7.2%) | 50.01mn (-5.9%) | 12.39mn (-12.0%) |
A count of nights, and a changed method
The survey counts guest-nights: one person staying three nights adds three. It is not a count of visitors or arrivals.
Since the January 2026 survey the agency has changed how it stratifies its sample, from number of employees to number of rooms. Facilities with 20 or more rooms are surveyed in full; smaller ones are sampled, with a sampling rate set for each prefecture. The agency warns that year-on-year changes and differences may include the effect of that review.
The September numbers are also early. They rest on questionnaires collected by 13 October, a valid response rate of 30.8%, and are due to be revised on 30 November. The August figures are second-preliminary, built on a 44.2% response rate, up from 36.5% at the first release.
August: the origin-market split
August's second-preliminary total was 62.40 million guest-nights, down 7.2%. Japanese nights fell 5.9% to 50.01 million and foreign nights fell 12.0% to 12.39 million. Foreigners were 19.9% of all nights, 1.1 points less than a year earlier.
By origin, among facilities with 20 or more rooms, Taiwan led with 1.99 million guest-nights (up 16.1%), followed by China with 1.67 million (down 50.8%), South Korea with 1.57 million (up 27.9%), the United States with 1.00 million (up 5.6%) and Hong Kong with 592,120 (up 12.3%). The top five made up 61.8% of foreign nights. Malaysia, Vietnam and South Korea posted large increases. The agency gives no cause for any of the nationality-level moves. Nordic countries, the Middle East and Mexico were added to the survey in January 2026, so the agency shows no year-on-year change for them.
The decline was concentrated in the eight prefectures the agency counts as the three major metropolitan areas (Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Aichi, Kyoto, Osaka and Hyogo). Foreign nights there fell 15.6%, against 4.9% elsewhere, and the regional share of foreign nights rose 2.7 points. Kyoto's foreign nights fell 21.9%, Osaka's 15.8% and Tokyo's 13.4%.
Occupancy
Overnight room occupancy was 62.6% in September, 0.2 points lower than a year earlier, after 64.6% in August. Ryokan (43.8%, up 5.0 points) and resort hotels (60.5%, up 3.5 points) improved on the year. Business hotels were flat at 76.9%, city hotels fell 1.0 point to 74.6%, and simple lodgings fell 3.0 points to 27.5%.