Japanese visitors may not be coming to Hawaiʻi in great numbers, but travelers from the Aloha State and elsewhere are piling into Japan.
The figures are in for the first 11 months of the year, and the number of foreign visitors has already topped 20 million.
The country hasnʻt reached that number since 2019, before the pandemic.
Many of the reasons are familiar — including the weak yen slowing Japanese travel, and Hawaiʻi increasing travel to Japan.
Arrival figures show the pace has picked up for travel from North America, but the biggest driver is visitors from elsewhere in Asia.
However, South Korea tops the list. November arrivals were three times those of 2019.
Visitors from Taiwan came next, followed by China, although Chinese travelers have dropped by nearly two-thirds compared to 2019.
Hong Kong and the United States round out the top five sources for visitors to Japan.
Japan's government says the number of foreign visitors is on track to reach about 25 million this year and is projected to break the record set before the pandemic by 2025.
On Wednesday, Japanese travel agency JTB predicted that the record will fall even sooner, by the end of next year.
