On October 11, Japan ended some of the world's strictest border controls, and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is counting on tourism to recharge the economy — especially with the yen hovering near a 32-year low against the dollar. And it appears to be working.

The number of foreign visitors to Japan rose to nearly 500,000 in October, the first month it fully reopened to overseas visitors after more than two years of Covid restrictions, more than doubling the volume from September.

The exact number of foreign visitors, for both tourism and business, rose to 498,600 last month, more than double September's 206,500 and surging a massive 2,155% from the year before, the Japan National Tourism Organization said, though it was still down 80% on 2019.

This year, 1.52 million foreign visitors have traveled to the country, a far cry from the record 31.8 million in 2019 and the government's 2020 goal — pegged to the Summer Olympics, which was ultimately postponed — of 40 million.

Kishida noted the government aims to attract 5 trillion yen ($35.8 billion) in annual tourist spending, but that may be a bridge too far for a sector that withered during the pandemic.

Hotel employment fell 22% between 2019 and 2021 and service workers who found other jobs may be hard to lure back.

Major gains will likely remain difficult until Chinese tourists return.

A record 9.5 million Chinese people came to Japan in 2019, which accounted for about a third of all visitors. However, with Covid spreading in China, its culture and tourism ministry said that cross-border group travel was still suspended.

But other trends are more encouraging. Inbound searches for hotels on the online bookings site Agoda went up nearly 16-fold between January and October, mainly by customers in South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, said Hiroto Ooka, the company's Japan-based head of North Asia.

"We are seeing the weak yen in a positive way," he said. "Many searches are coming in, and I think partially the yen being weak is the reason for that."

Last week, Japan said it's also reopening its ports to cruise ships from March 2023, with some 166 ships slated to visit next year.

Japan's inbound tourism market had shown remarkable growth before the pandemic. In 2019, the country got about 46.1 billion USD from foreign tourist expenditure, making it the seventh-largest earner in this category in the world, ahead of Germany and Australia. The travel and tourism sector contributed 359 billion USD to Japan's GDP, making it the world's third-largest market in this sector after the United States and China.