Seven months after much of its north-east coast was destroyed by a tsunami, Japan is attempting to revive tourism by offering free return flights to 10,000 foreign visitors.

Japan's tourism agency said the programme, which will begin in April, is expected to cost more than 1bn yen (£10m), equivalent to about 10% of its budget request for next year.

Applicants will be asked to outline their travel plans and answer questions about post-disaster tourism in Japan, recently named favourite long-haul country by readers of the Guardian and Observer in the newspapers' annual travel awards. Tokyo won favourite city for the second year in a row.

The successful applicants will receive free return air tickets, but must pay for their accommodation and other expenses.

Tourism to Japan dropped dramatically after the 11 March disaster, which left almost 20,000 people dead or missing and triggered the worst nuclear accident in the country's history.

In April, international visitor numbers stood at 296,000, according to the Japan national tourism agency (JNTO), down 63% on 2010; by August they had recovered to 547,000, down 32% on last year.

"The Asian market has been showing the fastest recovery, with visitors to Japan from south-east Asia having already bounced back into positive growth by month on 2010," said Mamoru Kobori, the JNTO's executive director of marketing and promotion. "Within Europe, the UK is leading the way in picking up the number of visitors to Japan."

Kobori said the agency had already invited more than 1,000 journalists and travel industry executives in an attempt to reassure the world Japan is a safe destination.

"[We want them] not to just take our word for it, but to come and see for themselves how the Japan of today offers as memorable and diverse a travel experience as ever," he said.

The agency hopes the programme will boost spending, particularly in regional economies: spending by visitors dropped by 47% in the three months after the disaster compared with last year.

Tourism officials concede many international visitors are still deterred by the continuing Fukushima nuclear crisis and the yen's rise to a record high against the dollar. Before the disaster, officials had set a target of attracting 30 million foreign visitors a year, a goal that appears well out of reach, at least for the next few years.

If its budget request is approved in March, the agency will start accepting online applications the following month, and select the candidates by early summer.