A Boeing 787 aircraft belonging to Japan Airlines File Photo: VCG

Japan's move to dump nuclear-contaminated water has forced Chinese tourists to change their travel plans to the country, as booking platforms recorded a sharp drop in demand for air tickets to the country.

Orders for flights to Japan from China dropped by 44 percent from August 25 to 30 compared with the sales from August 19 to 24, as Japan started to dump nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the ocean on August 24. The search volume for flights also went down by 42 percent from August 25 to 30 compared with the August 19-24 period, according to industry information provider Flight Master on Thursday.

A receptionist at Fliggy told the Global Times on Thursday that he has been receiving calls lately from customers who wanted to cancel their flights to Japan or change tickets to other countries or regions, such as Europe. In the wake of the nuclear-contaminated water dumping, many Chinese travelers prefer going to any destination rather than Japan.

"Every day we receive requests to cancel or change flight bookings to Japan due to the nuclear-contaminated water dumping," another receptionist from a state-owned airline also said.

Mao Yi, a spokesperson for Shanghai-based Spring Airlines said that the impact is limited so far for customers who booked their flights in advance due to a relatively high service charge, but "the ticket sales will definitely be hurt in the long term."

China was Japan's biggest source of travelers from 2015 to 2021. In 2019, Chinese tourists were the biggest spenders in Japan with total spending of 1.8 trillion Japanese yen ($12.3 billion). The figure accounted for 36.8 percent of the total visitor spending that year in Japan, according to a report posted by Nippon.com citing data from the Japan Tourism Agency.

Osaka's Kansai Airport, Tokyo's Narita and Haneda Airports are the top three destinations for Chinese airlines among the 13 flight destinations from the Chinese mainland to Japan. From Aug 21 to 27, the number of flights from the Shanghai Pudong International Airport to the three airports ranked in the top three among all routes from the Chinese mainland to Japan. The weekly flights between Shanghai Pudong and Kansai reached 85.

The flights to Japan have seen only slow recovery, as data from Flight Master showed that the number of flights to Japan in the past three weeks till Sunday only recovered to about 40 percent of the same period in 2019. In comparison, the flights between China and South Korea recovered to 61.9 percent. The recovery rate for flights from China to Singapore, the UK, and the United Arab Emirates reached above 70 percent. The flight volume between China and the UK has already recovered to the pre-epidemic level.