The strong growth has continued in 2017 with arrivals up 19 per cent in the year to February, ahead of the peak travel period in May.

The recent uptick in arrivals has made Japan, along with South Korea, Australia's fasting-growing major tourism market, ahead of China which saw arrivals grow by 17 per cent to 1.2 million last year.

The strong growth in Japanese arrivals had been attributed to a 20 per cent increase in inbound airline seating during 2016.

The 382,000 Japanese visitors to Australia last year spent more than $1.7 billion and as more inbound seats are added, the government is looking to increase this figure to $3 billion by 2020.

But the Japanese market has been tricky for the tourism industry since a peak of more than 814,000 tourists visited Australia in 1997.

After falling for the five years through until 2009, Japanese arrivals grew by 11 per cent in 2010, only to decline by 17 per cent the following year.

The market returned to marginal growth in 2014 and 2015, before the big rise last year.

Mr Ciobo is in Tokyo until Wednesday to promote tourism, investment and trade, after a new round of tariff cuts from the two-year-old free trade agreement came into effect on April 1.


Australia is the only major agricultural exporter to have a free-trade agreement with Japan.

The beef trade has been the major beneficiary from the FTA, with exports rising 22.5 per cent to almost $1.1 billion in the two years to the end of 2016.

"We are now focused on reducing non-tariff measures," Mr Ciobo said.

Australia has previously had issues with imported sugar and beef into Japan, but these problems have since been resolved.

Mr Ciobo will use his visit to mark the 60th anniversary of Australia and Japan signing the Commerce Agreement, which normalised trade relations after WWII.

The Minister also met with US Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross on Monday evening, who was in Tokyo ahead of a visit by Vice President Mike Pence.