Japan has seen record numbers of visitors this year.
But viral rumours of impending disaster stemming from a comic book prediction have reportedly taken the sheen off the tourism boom, with some airlines cancelling flights.
April saw an all-time monthly high of 3.9 million tourists but that dipped in May.
Arrivals from Hong Kong — the superstitious Chinese-controlled city where the rumours have circulated widely — were down 11 per cent year-on-year, according to the latest data.
A manga that sees the future?
Some believe the manga (Japanese comic book) The Future I Saw, predicted the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan's north-eastern coast killing thousands and triggering a nuclear disaster.
The cover of the first edition published in 1999 included the words "a great disaster will happen in March 2011".
The manga's reprint in 2021 revived the debate, and some have interpreted the latest edition as predicting a catastrophic event would occur specifically on July 5, 2025.
Ryo Tatsuki, the artist behind the manga has tried to dampen the speculation, saying in a statement issued by her publisher that she was "not a prophet".
Rumours started on social media
Akira Hasegawa, the deputy manager of Village Vanguard Bookshop in Tokyo, says that the manga went viral online.
"A lot of buyers [of The Future I Saw], the customers who visit our shop, are young people, so of course as July approached, the information about it spread on social media, mainly on TikTok," he said.
An American tourist in Japan told Reuters that he had heard the rumours and second-guessed travelling to Japan in July.
"I first heard about it [the rumours] from my wife, and then I watched some YouTube videos and did some research," said US tourist Joey Peng.
"She was trying to talk me out of coming to Japan, like, as we talked about earlier, right now is the best time for me to travel for my job."
'Significant impact' on tourism
Steve Huen, of Hong Kong-based travel agency EGL Tours, said the rumours had had a "significant impact" and his firm had seen its Japan-related business halve.
Discounts and the introduction of earthquake insurance had "prevented Japan-bound travel from dropping to zero", he added.
Hong Kong resident Branden Choi, 28, said he was a frequent traveller to Japan but was hesitant to visit the country during July and August due to the manga prediction.
"If possible, I might delay my trip and go after September," he said.
Earthquake prediction 'impossible'
Situated within the Pacific Ocean's "Ring of Fire", Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world.
In recent days there have been more than 900 earthquakes, most of them small tremors, on islands off the southern tip of Kyushu.
But Robert Geller, a professor at the University of Tokyo who has studied seismology since 1971, said even scientifically-based earthquake prediction was "impossible".
"None of the predictions I've experienced in my scientific career have come close at all," he said.
Nevertheless, low-cost carrier Greater Bay Airlines became the latest Hong Kong airline on Wednesday to cancel flights to Japan due to low demand.
They told Reuters that it would indefinitely suspend its service to Tokushima in western Japan from September.
ABC/wires
