HONOLULU (KHON2) — Breathtaking scenery and amazing food. Just two of the countless reasons Hawaii residents love to travel to Japan.
“I love Japan,” Scott Suzui said. “Their culture is just a fascinating country to see.”
Suzui has been traveling to Japan for decades. He is a tour guide with HIS Hawaii. He got home from his most recent trip less than a week ago and said the dip in yen is a game changer for travelers.
“It’s fabulous because you don’t even need to look at prices when you shop now because you know you’re having you know ¥ 152 to the dollar. It’s like everything’s so cheap, especially the food,” he added. “It’s just so delicious and it’s still not so affordable now.”
That affordability is all thanks to the weak Japanese yen.
“If the compare the value of the yen to before the pandemic level, the Yen has weakened by about 50%,” UH Economics Professor Peter Fuleky explained. Fuleky said it dipped another 10% since January.
“The levels, that yen weakness, has essentially hit levels that we last have seen in the 1980s,” he added.
The assistant GM at Panda Travel said they’ve seen the demand for trips to Japan almost double recently thanks in part to the drop in the yen.
“I advise anyone, right now is a good time to travel and take advantage of it,” Suzui said.
While travel to Japan right now is a very good deal for Hawaii residents, the exchange rate for the Japanese coming here is very much the opposite.
According to Fukely after the pandemic, the number of Japanese visitors to the islands has been growing steadily but has been no where near pre-pandemic levels.
“They are comparing the prices, what they have seen before the pandemic and what they are seeing now when they are planning their vacation in Hawaii,” Fuleky said. “And then they convert those dollars turns into yen. And that’s the other sticker shock.”
And that is keeping many of them from coming.
“Yea that’s the sad part,” Suzui said. “No one wants to come to Hawaii now. That’s the hard part (in Japan) they get all a lot of people just say, ‘Oh, we’re not coming now. Cause everything’s too expensive.’”