Visitor arrivals to Japan have jumped to almost one million in the first full month since the country scrapped COVID-19 curbs that effectively halted tourism for more than two years.

Data released on Wednesday showed the number of foreign visitors, for both tourism and business, rose to 934,500 in November, almost double the October figure, the Japan National Tourism Organisation (JNTO) said.

Still, arrivals were down almost two-thirds compared with pre-pandemic levels of 2019.

“The demand for Japan out of North America is very strong right now,” Air Canada vice president of international sales Virgilio Russi told Reuters before Wednesday’s numbers were released.

Passenger demand from Canada to Japan is more than double what it was in 2019, Mr Russi added, citing a shift away from China among business travellers as well as tourists taking advantage of the current weakness of the yen.

“From a cost perspective, Japan is quite reasonable right now,” he said.

Although the yen has climbed this week after a surprise policy change by the Bank of Japan, it remains 13 per cent weaker against the United States dollar this year.

And while China has begun to relax its zero-COVID policy, analysts don’t expect its borders to reopen until March or April.

So far this year, 2.46 million visitors have arrived in Japan, the JNTO data showed.

That’s a fraction of the record 31.8 million in 2019 and the government’s original 2020 goal of 40 million, timed to coincide with the Tokyo Olympics that were eventually postponed due to the pandemic.

Japan on October 11 ended some of the world’s strictest border controls and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is counting on tourism to boost the economy.

The government aims to attract five trillion yen ($57 billion) in annual tourist spending.

But that might be difficult to reach given Japan’s hospitality sector is suffering from a labour shortage and many Chinese citizens remain unable to travel.

A record 9.5 million Chinese people came to Japan in 2019, close to one third of all visitors.