Japanese Beer Now Drawing More Foreign Visitors

While Japan is attracting more tourists than ever before, Japanese beer seems to be playing a key role in making that happen. 

A major beer brewery in Fukuoka now has an onrush of foreign visitors coming to "enjoy" a factory tour with up to three glasses of fresh beer to the tour's end. It's sure a dandy idea, whomever conceived by, and sure enough, as many as 83 thousand, or 30% over last year before the last, of foreign tourists visited the factory last year, 30 minutes away from Fukuoka Airport.

Some 80% of them are from South Korea flying in just to enjoy Japan's legendary beer. A 39-year-old Korean male remarked:

"What a chance to try Japan's best beer fresh. It's great to try the kind of beer we can't drink at home."
A Korean woman, aged 28, took pictures to upload on the Internet with her comments on. 

Yukie Sonobe of Asahi Beer Hakata Factory says the brewery is eager to promote Japan's quality beer mouth-to-mouth via the visiting foreign tourists, training foreign languages-speaking staff to handle the influx.

Many of them bring home each as souvenir a 135-liter jar readily sized to fit the regular traveling suitcase. The brewery has opened a reservation site in Korean for potential visitors to book for months ahead.

Incidentally, the foreign tourists expended as much as 3 trillion and half yen or 176 thousand yen per head last year - the highest ever. It's an increase of 1.5%  over the previous year. The influx is mainly due to more commodities now counted in tax-free effective October last year.

It's an encouraging trend no doubt as Japan has a lot to count on its tourism with a huge event slated four years ahead  - the Olympics in 2020. 

Come and enjoy Japan - beer or no beer.

News Source: NHK