2010-06-30 14:14

To cash in on China's rising wealth, Tokyo will start to issue tourist visas to Chinese who hold gold cards — credit cards granted to those above a certain income level with good credit histories — or who earn more than 60,000 yuan ($8,800) annually.

That's down sharply from a previous income requirement of 250,000 yuan ($37,000) per year, a threshold that apparently was imposed to keep low-income earners from staying on and becoming illegal aliens.

The revised income requirement is still well above the average income for a Chinese city dweller — 19,000 yuan ($2,800) last year.

For Chinese tourists, shopping is the most popular activity while in Japan. Zhang Qin, a 31-year-old tourist from Beijing, says the No 1 appeal of Japanese products is their perceived superior quality.

She bought four Japanese digital cameras worth 560,000 yen ($6,300) at Yodobashi Camera. While similar products can be purchased in China, Zhang says she is wary of fakes.

She says she hasn't visited any tourist attractions during her five-day trip to Tokyo. "I am too busy with shopping," Zhang says.

Tokyo's upscale Ginza shopping district is getting a boost from the influx of Chinese shoppers, too.

"Chinese people don't go window-shopping in Ginza. They are in Ginza to buy, and they go for brand-name products like Burberry and Japanese cosmetic maker Shiseido," says Masatoshi Nitta, manager at the sales division at the Ginza branch of Mitsukoshi department store, one of Japan's most respected brands.

"Chinese are not shy about showing off their wealth. For them, buying high-end merchandise in Ginza itself is seen as a prestigious thing," he says.

To encourage Chinese shoppers, Mitsukoshi became the first Japanese department store to accept the popular Chinese debit card known as China Union Pay.

The card is also used to withdraw money from Japanese ATMs. The value of transactions by the Chinese debit card in Japan soared to 20 billion yen in 2009 from 2.7 billion yen in 2007, according to a Mitsui Sumitomo Card survey.

A group of Japanese companies promoting Chinese travel here estimates spending by Chinese tourists will jump nearly fourfold to 430 billion yen by 2012 from 120 billion yen in 2008.

Eyeing soaring growth from China, Ueno from the Japan Tourism Agency says the government should create further incentives to encourage Chinese travelers to return repeatedly to Japan.

"We want Chinese tourists to be curious about Japan. We want them to go beyond Tokyo and spend money. This is just a beginning," he says.