Foreign tourists feel the pain as dollar/euro weaken against yen

Yen/U.S. dollar:

Yen/Euro:

As the graphs above show, the financial crisis in the United States and Europe has caused substantial declines in the value of the U.S. dollar and euro vs. the Japanese yen. FTV has reported on the effect this development has on the shopping habits of American and European tourists visiting Japan:

The effect of the situation can be most easily observed in Akihabara, where foreign tourists often go to check out deals on digital cameras and high tech gadgets. Several tourists interviewed say that the currency exchange rates have forced them to cut down on their spending. A staff member at a Laox electronics store, who claims that foreigners account for 90% of sales, says he has noticed a 10 to 20 percent drop in customers. He also says he has encountered foreigners that have scaled down their purchases after calculating exchange rates.

The situation is also bad for foreign residents of Japan that rely on money from their home countries to survive. One example is Mark, a British guy studying at Waseda University in Tokyo. When he first came to Japan, he believed that he’d be able to survive half a year on 4,000 pounds, but the sudden change in currency exchange rate has forced him to live a lot cheaper than he had originally planned. When shopping for food, he now has to carefully watch prices and pick cheap items. When he makes dinner for his Japanese girlfriend, he talks about how expensive it is for him to cook in Japan (his girlfriend thinks he just buys too much expensive stuff). When describing the economic situation in Great Britain, Mark claims that the company his sister works for has laid off 65% of its employees.

The report closes with some words from the owner of a ryokan in Asakusa that relies on foreign guests for 90% of its business. There isn’t a whole lot he can do about the financial crisis or currency exchange rates, but he will be trying his best to deliver excellent service and make his foreign customers feel glad they visited Japan.

Update: The guy from the video sent in an e-mail responding to the post and throwing back insults at readers who dissed him.

I happen to be the guy in this report, so I’ll clear up a couple of things.

1) FTV edited heavily what I said. Example: Right before I said “coming to buy sashimi every day”, the first part of that sentence was “Many people from the dormitory are”.

2) FTV told me what to make for dinner for their filming, and they paid for it too. I’m eating rice most days.

3) The flat wasn’t mine, nor the television. They belong to my other half.

4) For those of you who think I’m on scholarship, I’m not.

5) If you really think I’d pay a 10% handling fee out of choice or out of lack of knowledge then your opinion is wrong. A long series of Japanese rules makes it difficult for newcomers to open bank accounts straight away. Thousands of people are in the same boat, and the 10% thing is only temporary, but they cut that bit out too.

To user “Level3″ – I think your screen name says something about you that you didn’t intend. You’ll see that on the computer I’m using, I’m arranging part time work, so boo fucking hoo indeed, ね。

To user “Jordan” – You’d be a more balanced person if you got a second chip for your other shoulder.

To user “tzvete” – You really shouldn’t be insulting my intelligence when you write with such poor linguistic skills. Put a space after punctuation marks, or else I’ll have a very disturbing image of how you speak in real life.

Now your time can be spent writing more informed comments.

[Note: The original post contained mention of a scholarship, an error on my part which was corrected several hours after posting. Apologies.]