Keeping the tourism dollar at home

Fast and effective: Chinese tourists packing their shopping into a suitcase at a department store in Tokyo. Reuters

CHINESE travellers’ craze for made-in-Japan goods is so pronounced that the phenomenon became a buzzword in Japan last year. Bakugai (meaning “explosive buying”) is the new Japanese term coined to describe the buying sprees of Chinese shoppers.

Some Japanese companies have even designed special products with an eye on Chinese shoppers in Japan.