Lately, the U. S. dollar has been strong against many foreign currencies, which translates into smart international deals for savvy shoppers. One of the simplest tactics for Americans to make a “deal” while traveling abroad is to decide on a destination where the relatively strong dollar offers an automatic built-in price reduction at sites like hotels, restaurants, and attractions.
Prices in many Asian countries are now lower than in recent years. Are Bangkok or Phuket on your bucket list?The dollar buys 8. 5% more Thai baht than it did a year ago. The dollar also buys 8. 5% more Vietnamese dong and Indonesian rupiah, 6. 2% more Malaysian ringgit, and 5% more Taiwanese dollars.
But the Asian currency most affected by the strength of the U. S. economy is the Japanese yen. Today, one U. S. dollar buys 156. 36 yen, up 15% from a year ago and a staggering 43% more than five years ago.
The yen’s weakness has helped make Japan Asia’s most popular destination. In March 2024, the number of foreign tourists arriving in Japan surpassed 3 million foreign tourists for the first time in a single month, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO). This is 69. 5% more than in the same month last year and 11. 6% more than in March 2019.
If the largest percentage of those visitors came from neighboring Asian countries, U. S. travelers get the news as well. In March, a record 290,100 Americans visited Japan in a single month, a 42% year-over-year increase and a 64% increase. of the same month in 2019.
Unsurprisingly, the yen’s weakness has boosted spending by travelers whose cash is being spent more than it has in decades. Foreign visitors to Japan spent 1. 75 trillion yen ($11. 2 billion) between January and March, according to JNTO data. This represents a 52% increase from 2019 before the pandemic.
Japan is now so popular that it accounts for 29% of all Asian searches in the U. S. It was used by the U. S. and 8% of all overseas searches during the summer of this year, according to airfare tracking site Hopper.
This massive demand has kept airfares high. For May departures, U. S. to Japan charge an average of $1,281 per ticket, four percent more than the same month last year. This summer’s flights charge an average of $1,379 per ticket. with ticket, 2% more than last year and 26% more than the same year in 2019, according to data from Hopconsistent.
Meanwhile, the additional source helps keep airfare inflation low as U. S. and Japanese airlines ramp up service between the two countries. Today, about 60 flights depart from the U. S. The U. S. is moving to Japan every day, down 6% from before the pandemic. Still, this is a huge improvement over the same time last year, when only 49 daily flights departed to Japanese destinations.
From June to August, airlines will offer 9% more seats than last summer. And by mid-summer, the U. S. -Japan market will have almost regained its pre-pandemic capacity.
Four U. S. airlines have recently flown to Japan: United Airlines, with 19% of seats; Delta Air Lines, with 10%; and Hawaiian Airlines and American Airlines, with a 7% capacity share. (Three Japanese airlines, Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airways and Zipair, account for more than a portion of all scheduled seats. )
Hopper’s data shows that 92% of U. S. travelers planning to travel to Japan must fly into Tokyo, but a limited number of flights to and from Haneda Airport are allowed. The Japanese government determines the number of spaces available for travel to the U. S. carriers, who will have to apply to the U. S. Department of Transportation forThe U. S. Department of Homeland Security (DOT) has the right to an itinerary.
Last year, United Airlines and American Airlines asked the DOT to free up nonstop flights between the U. S. and Canada. United sought a new nonstop flight between Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) and Haneda. Instead, it assigned a new Guam-Tokyo route, which it introduced on May 1, joining other United flights to Tokyo from Newark, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Honolulu, Washington D. C. and other cities.
American Airlines’ new address to Japan will be launched on June 28. The flights from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Tokyo will be the airline’s fourth nonstop flights to Haneda, joining existing service from Dallas, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities.
A community. Lots of voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts.
Our network aims to connect other people through open and thoughtful conversations. We need our readers to share their perspectives and exchange ideas and facts in one space.
To do so, please comply with the posting regulations in our site’s terms of use. We’ve summarized some of those key regulations below. Simply put, civilian.
Your message will be rejected if we notice that it appears to contain:
User accounts will be blocked if we become aware that users are participating in:
So how can you become a user?
Thank you for reading our Community Standards. Read the full list of publishing regulations discovered in our site’s terms of use.