Q.What Japanese food do inbound visitors most want to eat?
Published 2026-06-18
Answer
The thing inbound visitors most look forward to before their trip is "eating Japanese food" — about 82% (JTA, 2024), ahead of "shopping" (about 63%) as the single biggest reason to visit. In a survey of what they actually ate in Osaka, ramen ranked first.
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.
82%expected 'eating Japanese food' before the trip (multiple answers, #1)
63%expected 'shopping' (#2)
21.5%food & drink share of inbound travel spending
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.
| Rank | Dish (eaten in Osaka) |
|---|---|
| 1 | Ramen |
| 2 | Takoyaki |
| 3 | Sushi |
| 4 | Udon / Soba |
| 5 | Yakiniku (grilled meat) |
| 6 | Tempura |
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.