The Inbound Consumption Trend Survey (インバウンド消費動向調査) is the Japan Tourism Agency’s quarterly statistic on spending by foreign visitors to Japan; its former name was the Consumption Trend Survey for Foreigners Visiting Japan (訪日外国人消費動向調査). The name changed from the April–June 2024 survey, but neither the survey items nor the estimation method changed, so readers who arrived searching for the old name are looking at the same survey. The latest published figure is the second preliminary release for April–June 2026 (published September 30, 2026): foreign visitor travel spending was ¥2.5125 trillion (+0.3% YoY), of which accommodation accounted for ¥920.7 billion, or 36.6% of the total.

This article is not a quarterly deep dive; it focuses on how to read the survey itself. Following the definitions in the published materials, it sets out who is asked what and how, how the first preliminary, second preliminary and final releases differ, what the five spending categories cover, and why “accommodation spend per person per night” — the figure hoteliers most often misread — is a different thing from their own ADR. For an analysis that reads the April–June figures against the lodging market, see our earlier article (April–June ¥2.5 trillion and the gap to market ADR).

What Is the Inbound Consumption Trend Survey? A Demand-Side Statistic Asking ~30,000 Departing Visitors per Quarter

Start with the survey’s framework. According to the Japan Tourism Agency’s “Overview of the Inbound Consumption Trend Survey”, the survey covers “foreigners departing Japan (excluding crew and those staying one year or longer)”, and is conducted at international departure lobbies and similar locations at 29 airports and seaports nationwide. Interviewers who speak foreign languages conduct the interview while showing a tablet or a paper questionnaire (12 languages). Because respondents are asked just before boarding their flight home, the answers capture all spending during their stay in Japan. Responses are checked on site, and tablet responses are compiled the same day.

Under a single survey name, three surveys with different purposes actually run every quarter: the A1 National Survey, which captures detailed spending by nationality/region; the B1 Regional Survey, which captures spending by prefecture; and the B2 Cruise Survey, which covers cruise passengers who entered on cruise-ship landing permits. The combined sample target reaches 33,240 questionnaires per quarter, and the population is the number of simple foreign departures from the Ministry of Justice’s Statistics on Legal Migrants. The sample, stratified by nationality/region and port of departure, is weighted back to the population, and the total is estimated by multiplying spending per traveler by the number of travelers (general visitors, i.e. JNTO visitor arrivals minus cruise passengers).

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from the Japan Tourism Agency, “Overview of the Inbound Consumption Trend Survey”

The history of the name change is also worth knowing. In a press release on April 5, 2024, the Japan Tourism Agency announced that the Consumption Trend Survey for Foreigners Visiting Japan — previously a general statistical survey under the Statistics Act — would end with the January–March 2024 survey, and that from the April–June 2024 survey it would be conducted as the Inbound Consumption Trend Survey, with the aim of promoting use of individual traveler spending data (microdata). What changed was the survey’s purpose and the procedure for providing microdata; the published materials state explicitly that “since the survey items and estimation methods have not been changed, comparison with data for January–March 2024 and earlier is possible.” In other words, there is no need to draw a break line at 2024 when going back through the time series.

That said, several notes besides the name affect how to read the time series. The B1 Regional Survey and the B2 Cruise Survey were suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic and resumed in April–June 2023 and July–September 2023 respectively. From the 2026 survey, Mexico, the Nordic countries and the Middle East were added as surveyed countries; up to 2025 they were included in “Other”, so care is needed in nationality comparisons. In addition, cruise passenger spending for January–March and April–June 2026 is treated as a reference value because the number of surveyed sailings and responses per port were insufficient.

Release Schedule — First Preliminary, Second Preliminary and Final Releases Differ in the Headcounts Used for Weighting

Results are released in two stages each quarter and finalized on a calendar-year basis. According to the Japan Tourism Agency’s tourism statistics release calendar, the 2026 schedule is: January–March, first preliminary April 15 and second preliminary June 30; April–June, July 15 and September 30; July–September, October 21 and December 24; October–December, January 20 and March 31, 2027. A preliminary calendar-year figure is released on the same day as the October–December first preliminary release, and is finalized with the calendar-year final release on March 31 of the following year. In other words, it is a three-stage rocket: a first preliminary release roughly two to three weeks after quarter-end, a second preliminary release about three months after, and a final release at the end of March of the following year.

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from the Japan Tourism Agency, tourism statistics release calendar (as of March 31, 2026; scheduled dates are subject to change)

So what is the difference between the first and second preliminary releases? According to the published explanation, when the sample stratified by nationality/region and port of departure is weighted back to the population structure, “the survey design and the first preliminary release use data for the same period of the previous year, while the second preliminary and final releases use data for the current period.” That is, at the first preliminary stage the breakdown of current-quarter departures is not yet final, so weighting uses the year-earlier mix; the second preliminary release replaces it with current-quarter actuals. It is more accurate to understand the revision as an update to the headcount side than as an increase in the number of responses.

April–June 2026 shows the size of a typical revision. The first preliminary release put the total at ¥2.5096 trillion (+0.2% YoY) and accommodation at ¥927.8 billion (37.0% share); the second preliminary release put them at ¥2.5125 trillion (+0.3%) and ¥920.7 billion (36.6%). While the total barely moved (+¥2.9 billion), within the breakdown accommodation fell by ¥7.1 billion and shopping rose by ¥9.0 billion, from ¥673.1 billion to ¥682.1 billion. Accommodation spend per person per night also edged up from ¥10,446 to ¥10,460. A revision of 0.4 points in share and just under 1% in value looks small, but any article or internal document discussing quarterly spending shares must always state which release stage its figures come from.

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from the Japan Tourism Agency, “Inbound Consumption Trend Survey, April–June 2026 (first and second preliminary) — Summary of Results”

Defining the Five Spending Categories — Accommodation Even Includes Private Lodging and Long-Stay Rent

Spending in this survey is split into “in-trip spending” and “pre-trip spending”, and the five published spending categories belong to in-trip spending. Pre-trip spending covers group-tour and package fees and international fares for independent travelers; the domestic-revenue portion of it (accommodation, food and drink, domestic transport, etc.) is allocated using the category mix of independent leisure travelers and added to the categories as the “package breakdown”. Category amounts are on this post-addition “travel spending” basis. Laying out the scope of each category as given in the Japan Tourism Agency’s “Glossary of Terms”, several items stand out as broader than hoteliers might assume.

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from the Japan Tourism Agency, “Inbound Consumption Trend Survey — Glossary of Terms”

Two points matter for lodging operators. First, the universe behind accommodation spending is not limited to hotels and ryokan under the Hotel Business Act; it includes paid home-sharing stays, membership facilities and even rent paid by long-stay visitors. Accommodation spending of ¥920.7 billion cannot be read as “hotel and ryokan revenue”. Second, meals in half-board plans are counted under accommodation, whereas sales at in-house shops go to shopping. When comparing category shares with your own departmental revenue mix, keep this boundary mismatch in mind.

Quarterly Spending and Category Mix Over Time — Accommodation’s Share Moves Seasonally Between 33.5% and 38.5%

Viewed as a time series, the survey’s patterns also become visible. Foreign visitor travel spending grew from ¥1.0103 trillion in January–March 2023 to ¥2.5319 trillion in October–December 2025, and the 2025 calendar-year final figure of ¥9.4549 trillion (+16.4% YoY) set a new record. In 2026, January–March came in at ¥2.3373 trillion (second preliminary) and April–June at ¥2.5125 trillion (same), both slightly above the year-earlier quarters. Since 2024 the pattern of peaks in April–June and October–December and a trough in July–September has been stable, so for annual outlooks the basic comparison is year-on-year between the same quarters.

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from the Japan Tourism Agency, Inbound Consumption Trend Survey (January–March and April–June 2026 are second preliminary figures; January–March and April–June 2023 exclude cruise passengers)

The category mix is seasonal too. Over the latest six quarters, accommodation’s share was lowest at 33.5% in January–March 2025 and highest at 38.5% in April–June 2025. In the cherry-blossom April–June quarter, room rates rise and accommodation’s share swells, whilein January–March 2025 shopping’s share (29.4%) was large (25.3% in January–March 2026). The 36.6% for April–June 2026 was 1.9 points below the year-earlier quarter, but it exactly matches the 36.6% in the 2025 calendar-year final release, so it is most naturally read as a return to the annual-average level. Food & drink sits at 21–23%, transport around 10%, and entertainment & services at 4–5%; the shares of these three categories barely move from quarter to quarter.

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from the Japan Tourism Agency, Inbound Consumption Trend Survey, quarterly summaries of results (2025 quarters are final, 2026 are second preliminary; “Other” at 0.0–0.1% omitted)

Reading Accommodation Spend — “Per Person per Night” Is Per Person and Tax-Inclusive, Not a Per-Room ADR

This is the point this article most wants to make. Accommodation spend per person per night for general visitors in April–June 2026 was ¥10,460 (second preliminary, all purposes), up 7.5% from ¥9,727 a year earlier. Seeing this number, it is tempting to think “so inbound visitors pay about ¥10,000 a night” and compare it with your own ADR, but the two differ in unit, tax treatment and universe.

First, the unit. Accommodation spend per person per night is general visitors’ total accommodation spending divided by person-nights (people × nights). If two people share a room, the room rate is divided across two person-nights. Second, taxes and service charges: because the survey asks what travelers paid, it is an amount including consumption tax, accommodation tax and service charges, whereas this site’s ADR is an estimated transacted rate on a tax-exclusive basis aligned with REIT-disclosed results. Third, the universe: as the previous section showed, accommodation includes guesthouses, paid home-sharing stays and long-stay rent, and person-nights spent at relatives’ or friends’ homes with zero accommodation cost also enter the denominator. The long average stay of 8.6 nights reflects long stays for business and visiting relatives, which dilute accommodation spending once averaged per night. For the same reason, this average length of stay differs markedly from per-visitor nights calculated by dividing the Overnight Travel Statistics Survey’s guest nights by visitor arrivals, so the two figures should not be used interchangeably.

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from the Japan Tourism Agency, Inbound Consumption Trend Survey, April–June 2026 (second preliminary), and MetroEngines Research (estimated transacted ADR for April–June 2026, 3-month average of each month’s prefectural median; Tokyo N=1,137–1,145 properties, Kyoto N=588–607, Fukuoka N=473–476, Okinawa N=500–505, Hokkaido N=947–949, Osaka N=644–650)

The chart places these side by side to show the difference in definitions, not to compare levels. The estimated transacted ADRs of about ¥15,000 in Tokyo, about ¥16,700 in Kyoto and about ¥9,500 in Osaka are all per-room, tax-exclusive medians for hotels and ryokan listed on OTAs and similar channels, and cannot be measured on the same yardstick as the per-person, tax-and-service-inclusive, all-lodging-types figure of ¥10,460. Even if you double the per-person-per-night figure on a two-per-room assumption, it is safer to assume it cannot be converted into a hotel room rate, since free-of-charge person-nights and long-stay rent are mixed in.

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from the Japan Tourism Agency, Inbound Consumption Trend Survey “Glossary of Terms” and “Overview”, and MetroEngines Research

So what is this statistic useful for to lodging operators? Accommodation spend per person and average nights by nationality are among the few published figures showing which markets are “guests who spend on lodging”, and combined with the nationality mix of your catchment they can inform plan design and F&B. The year-on-year change in accommodation’s share reveals the big tide of whether visitors’ spending is shifting toward lodging or flowing to shopping. On the other hand, it is not a basis for judging whether your ADR is high or low relative to the market. For that purpose, it makes more sense to use area estimated transacted ADR built on the same per-room yardstick, or hotel rates tracked by currency.

How to Use It Alongside the Overnight Travel Statistics Survey, Visitor Arrivals Statistics and the Travel and Tourism Consumption Trend Survey

When tracking inbound demand, even statistics from the same Japan Tourism Agency and JNTO divide their roles according to whether they measure “people”, “person-nights” or “spending”. The Inbound Consumption Trend Survey asks the demand side (travelers) about spending, whereas the Overnight Travel Statistics Survey has the supply side (lodging facilities) report person-nights and occupancy, the Visitor Arrivals Statistics count arrivals based on immigration statistics, and the Travel and Tourism Consumption Trend Survey is the domestic counterpart covering Japanese residents. The table below sets out how the four relate.

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from the Japan Tourism Agency, “Overview of the Inbound Consumption Trend Survey”, “Overview of the Overnight Travel Statistics Survey” and Travel and Tourism Consumption Trend Survey, JNTO Visitor Arrivals Statistics, and each set of published materials

Boiled down to three points: first, “how much was spent” comes from the Inbound Consumption Trend Survey, “how many stayed and how full were rooms” from the Overnight Travel Statistics Survey, and “how many came” from the Visitor Arrivals Statistics. Second, because the consumption survey’s total is estimated by multiplying visitor arrivals by spending per person, a revision to JNTO’s headcount moves the spending figure too. Finally, from January 2026 data the Overnight Travel Statistics Survey changed its stratification basis from number of employees to number of rooms, and the published materials note that year-on-year changes may include the effect of this revision. When quoting year-on-year changes in person-nights, add this caveat. Preliminary occupancy figures also shift when the second preliminary release comes out, so state the release stage there as well.

Latest Figures — Key Points of the April–June 2026 Second Preliminary Release; July–September First Preliminary Due October 21

As of writing (October 9, 2026), the latest published figure is the April–June second preliminary release published on September 30, 2026. The July–September first preliminary release has not yet been published; the Japan Tourism Agency’s release calendar schedules it for October 21, 2026 (with a note that dates are subject to change). The main April–June figures are listed below.

Source: Japan Tourism Agency, Inbound Consumption Trend Survey, April–June 2026 (second preliminary) and calendar year 2025 (final). YoY for categories and per-person-per-night values calculated by the HotelBank Editorial Team against the April–June 2025 final figures

By nationality/region, travel spending in order of published value was the United States ¥386.0 billion (15.4% share), Taiwan ¥361.8 billion (14.4%), China ¥263.5 billion (10.5%), South Korea ¥258.1 billion (10.3%) and Hong Kong ¥143.9 billion (5.7%). A year earlier China had ranked first at ¥506.4 billion (20.2%), but this article does not go into the background by nationality; how total accommodation spending rose in January–March even as Chinese visitors halved, and how person-nights have moved since, are separate questions best read from the quarterly and monthly releases themselves.

Finally, a note on etiquette when quoting the figures. Always attach “first preliminary”, “second preliminary” or “final” to quarterly values, and update first preliminary figures once the second preliminary release is out. When comparing shares with the previous year, compare figures from the same stage (comparing a second preliminary value with the previous year’s final figure is acceptable, but do not mix it with comparisons between first preliminary figures). And do not quote accommodation spend per person per night as a room rate. Following just these three points will considerably reduce misreadings in internal documents.

Summary

The Inbound Consumption Trend Survey is the Japan Tourism Agency’s quarterly statistic that kept the same design as its predecessor, the Consumption Trend Survey for Foreigners Visiting Japan, while changing its name and purpose from April–June 2024. It is a demand-side statistic asking visitors about their spending just before departure; the first preliminary release is weighted by the year-earlier headcount mix, and the second preliminary and final releases by the current-quarter mix. The accommodation category includes private lodging and long-stay rent, and accommodation spend per person per night is a tax-and-service-inclusive amount divided by person-nights, so it cannot be compared with a per-room, tax-exclusive ADR. The latest April–June 2026 second preliminary release shows ¥2.5125 trillion with accommodation at 36.6%, and the July–September first preliminary release is scheduled for October 21. Once it is published, the “Latest Figures” section of this article will be updated.

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