A record 42.68 million people visited Japan in 2025. Nobody counts how many of them played golf.

Japan holds the second-largest supply of golf courses in the world after the United States. In 2025 it received a record 42.68 million international visitors, who spent approximately ¥9.45 trillion. Yet Japan publishes no figure at all for how many of them played golf.

Neither the Japan Tourism Agency nor the Japan National Tourism Organization reports it. The most recent estimate available is from the Japan Golf Tourism Association, which suggested in 2018 that international visitors accounted for 1 to 2 percent of golf played in Japan — against around 80 percent in Thailand and around 20 percent in the United States.

That gap was the subject of a special edition of President Talk, the interview programme hosted by Kumi Fujisawa, outside director of Toyota Motor Corporation and Mercari, Inc. Her guest was Toshihito Okamichi, founder of Elite Golf Japan.

“Japan has more than two thousand courses and doesn’t even measure it,” Okamichi said.

Okamichi spent 14 years with the PGM Group, one of Japan’s largest golf course operators, working on the customer side rather than in course operations and eventually serving as Area Manager. He still plays around 60 rounds a year. In those rounds he sees an international golfer at most twice.

The problem, he argues, is not the quality of Japanese golf. It is access. English-language reservation systems remain uncommon, procedures vary from club to club, and overseas travel agents told him they were turning enquiries away because they could not book with confidence.

Fujisawa’s response was immediate. “What a waste.”

Elite Golf Japan was created to close that gap. The company books tee times at 36 partner courses across 14 prefectures for international golfers, handling the Japanese-language reservation, rental clubs and caddies. The golfer pays a concierge fee. The golf course pays nothing.

“I want the golf courses to make money,” Okamichi said. “So we take nothing from them at all.”

For visitors from the United States and Australia, the practical barriers are the same: reservation systems that operate only in Japanese, group-size requirements that vary by club, and rental equipment that must be confirmed in advance. Elite Golf Japan handles all three.

Japan’s own golfers are disappearing — participation fell below five million for the first time in 2024 — leaving enormous infrastructure just as the traditional customer base contracts.

Japan’s golf season runs year-round by region: Hokkaido in summer, Okinawa and Kyushu through winter, and most of the country in spring and autumn.

“I want Japan to be number one in Asia for inbound golf tourism,” Okamichi said.

The full conversation is available here: https://egc2026.co.jp/en/news/what-international-visitors-want-in-japan/

Media Contact

Elite Golf & Culture Inc.Toshihito Okamichi, Representative Director and CEO
Email: info@egc2026.co.jp
Service site: https://elitegolfjapan.com

This press release has also been published on VRITIMES