Q.What Japanese food do inbound visitors most want to eat?

Food, not shopping, is the top reason to visit

In the JTA's "Consumption Trends of International Visitors to Japan" (2024), leisure visitors were asked what they had looked forward to before their trip (multiple answers). The most common response was "eating Japanese food" at about 82% — ahead of "shopping" (about 63%) and the single top motivation for visiting. "Drinking Japanese alcohol" (sake, shochu, etc.) also ranked high, with interest rising compared with before the pandemic.

So what do they eat? In Osaka, ramen comes first

Nationwide dish-by-dish data is limited, but in a survey by the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau asking visitors what they ate in Osaka (cited by the Japan Research Institute), ramen ranked first, followed by takoyaki, sushi, udon/soba, yakiniku and tempura — mostly affordable, accessible dishes. At the same time, "meat dishes" such as Kobe and Matsusaka beef (WAGYU) are highly prized worldwide as premium, high-value items. These are Osaka results, but they sketch the outline of what visitors most want to eat.

High satisfaction turns into repeat buying after the trip

Satisfaction with Japanese food is high, and it carries over into spending after the trip. In a survey by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, 58.2% of visitors who liked a Japanese food souvenir kept buying it after returning home, and 24.4% of them did so via cross-border EC or mail order. The food experience does not end with a single meal — it leads to re-ordering once they are back home (see the related article, "After a trip, do people re-order the local products they loved online?").

Turning Nara's food into something visitors want to eat

Nara is full of foods that map onto what visitors crave — "sushi" (kakinoha-zushi), "noodles" (Miwa somen), and "meat" (Yamato beef), plus Yoshino kuzu and Yamato tea. But Nara is a day-trip, pass-through destination, and tends to cede dinner — the single largest meal expense of the day — to Kyoto and Osaka (food spending moves together with lodging). If food can become a reason to stay longer, there is ample room to capture more dining spend. Start with the datasets below to see Nara's tourism spending and visitor profile for yourself.

Datasets behind this article

• インバウンド観光庁

  Inbound Consumption Trend Survey (Japan Tourism Agency)

  A quarterly survey of foreign visitor spending in Japan (formerly the Foreign Visitor Consumption Trend Survey). Publishes total travel consumption, per-capita spending by country/region, and breakdowns by category such as lodging, dining, and shopping. The baseline data for understanding the scale and structure of inbound consumption.

  💡Questions this data can answer

  How much does a foreign visitor spend per trip on average?

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  Updated2026-07-26
• インバウンド奈良県

  Nara Prefecture International Visitor Estimates

  Estimates of international visitors to Nara, derived by applying the prefecture’s visitation rate to national arrival figures. Annual Excel series from 2012 with nationality breakdowns — a first-stop overview of Nara’s inbound scale.

  💡Questions this data can answer

  How many international tourists are estimated to visit Nara each year?

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  Updated2026-07-26
• 商工会議所奈良商工会議所

  Nara Chamber of Commerce Surveys (Pedestrian Counts, Tourist Interviews)

  An archive of surveys by the Nara Chamber of Commerce and Industry, including pedestrian traffic counts in central Nara dating back to 1977 and street interviews with tourists — street-level insights that government statistics don’t capture.

  💡Questions this data can answer

  How has pedestrian traffic in central Nara’s shopping streets changed?

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  Updated2026-07-26
• RESAS経済産業省・内閣府

  RESAS Tourism Map

  The national big-data dashboard for regional economies. Its tourism maps show destination search rankings and de-facto population by prefecture and municipality — private-sector indicators that ordinary statistics can’t provide.

  💡Questions this data can answer

  Which destinations in Nara are searched for the most?

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  Updated2026-07-26
• 観光客数奈良県

  Nara Prefecture Tourist Dynamics Survey Report

  Annual survey reports on tourist movements in Nara Prefecture, covering visitor numbers by major tourist site, day-trip vs. overnight ratios, and foreign visitor counts. Reports are available from 2006 onward, enabling long-term time-series comparison.

  💡Questions this data can answer

  How has the annual number of tourists to Nara changed over time?

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  Updated2026-07-26

Related reading

• What do inbound visitors spend the most on?
• After a trip, do people re-order the local products they loved online?