TOKYO -- Annual foreign arrivals in Japan have passed the 20 million mark for the first time ever, the country's tourism agency announced on Monday.

Eastern Asian countries and regions, including China, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, were the largest source of visitors. Loosened visa requirements, newer airline routes -- such as Iberia's direct Madrid-Tokyo service, which returned in October for the first time in 18 years -- and the growing number of foreign cruise ships making port calls in the country helped the number of arrivals grow.

Total arrivals for 2016 will likely be around 24 million, which would be an encouraging step toward the government's target of welcoming 40 million tourists a year by 2020. To do that, Japan would need to sustain an annual growth of 13.7%, according to SMBC Nikko Securities.

Keiichi Ishii, the transport and tourism minister, said on Monday that the government is committed to working together to further promote tourism and make Japan an advanced nation in terms of tourism. Japan aims to attract 60 million tourists in 2030, which would place the nation close to today's number three destination Spain, which had 68 million visitors in 2015. France, the world's top tourist destination had 84 million, followed by the U.S. with 77 million.

The number of foreign tourists in Japan exceeded 10 million first time in 2013 and has grown steadily every year since. Last year, 19.7 million foreigners visited the country.

The pace of foreign arrivals temporarily slowed after the Kumamoto Prefecture and surrounding regions in southwestern Japan were hit by massive earthquakes in April, but later rebounded.

During the first nine months of this year, China was the largest single source of tourists, accounting for some 5 million arrivals, a quarter of the total. About 70% of foreign tourists came from eastern Asia.

The number of inexpensive cruise ship tours stopping in the country is rapidly growing as well. During the January-September period, there were 1,176 port calls by foreign cruise ships at ports across Japan, up about 50% from a year earlier.

The desire and means to travel is expected to keep growing as the ranks of Asia's middle classes continue to swell. Yet the biggest challenge for Japan is accommodation, according to SMBC. Hotels in popular cities such as Kyoto, Osaka, Tokyo and Chiba continuously have occupation rates around 70-80%. "Japan will need to deregulate and allow private residences to host guests," so that services like Airbnb can fill the gap, SMBC said in a report on Monday.

The Japanese government plans to beef up tourism infrastructure, including increasing capacity at airports and seaports and setting up more tourist information booths for foreign visitors.

(Nikkei)