28.7

The number in millions of tourists who visited Japan in 2017, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO). This represents an off-the-charts rise in visitor numbers to any country on record.

From 1995 to 2012, the annual number of tourists going to Japan increased from 3.3 million to 8.4 million, a growth rate of about 6% per year.

But the rapid rise of more than 20 million over the past five years is the largest ever recorded by the organisation, which keeps statistics going back to 1995.