Why’s everybody going to Japan?

Welcome back to the show.

Reason number three tourism to Japan took off, I don't say this often, but for once it was because of a government plan.

A conspiracy, except not really because this was in the open.

The plan starts fitfully in Japan in 2003.

Then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi launches a campaign called Visit Japan.

The goal is to get from five million yearly visitors to 10 million.

The campaign launches with this advertisement which, if anyone outside of Japan had made it, I think would have been considered borderline problematic.

This is their music, not ours.

And if you're picturing a montage of geishas applying white makeup, cherry blossoms, temples, the world's most stereotypical procession of Japanese imagery as imagined by a Western eye, you are picturing things correctly.

But this campaign fell short.

Japan may have been an attractive place to visit, but it was too expensive.

But then, in the early 2010s, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe returns to office.

And Abe does something very consequential.

He deliberately drives down the value of the yen.

He's doing this to help Japanese exports, not to bring in foreigners.

But by pushing this button, he makes everything in Japan cheaper to outsiders.

Hotel rooms, restaurant meals.

Here's Roland Kelts.

You know, you can come to Tokyo, you can, you can get a full, beautiful, excellent soba lunch meal for under $10.

I, I, I'm not exaggerating, by the way.

Under $10.

I mean, I, last time I was in New York in May-

Oh, God, no. [laughs]

... uh, you could kick, kick at a, an apple and a banana for $10.

Yeah, you really can.