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Is it the Tokyo Drift for tourism?
It's World Business Express from the BBC World Service.
I'm Leanna Byrne.
We hear from a farmer in South Africa whose livestock have been hit by foot and mouth, and inflation in the UK is cooling.
Lots of news coming out of Japan today.
New trade deals being struck with the US and Sanae Takeuchi is being sworn in as Prime Minister.
But there's one set of numbers that caught my eye.
For the first time in four years, the number of visitors to Japan has fallen.
Arrivals in January dropped by almost 5%, that's 3.6 million people.
That's largely because far fewer travellers arrive from China, as diplomatic tensions between the two countries continue to weigh on demand.
Now that matters because tourism contributes tens of billions of dollars to Japan's economy and is heavily promoted to people overseas.
Each note carries a soul resonating and echoing, from the forests of Akan to the shores of Lake Poroto.
These are not echoes of the past, but promises to the future.
But it's not all bad news.
Some of that fall in Chinese visitors has been offset by more people coming from places like Singapore and Taiwan, because of the weak yen.
Nikki Yoshihara is the owner of Tokyo Tours, a Japan-based tour company that operates across the country.
Well, what we're noticing is that it's less crowded at certain tourist destinations.
But to be honest, we're not too far from Golden Week in May.
And generally that's when all the Chinese tourists come back to Japan, because they have holidays too.
So let's see if this trend keeps or whether the Chinese droves will come back for their May holidays.
Yeah, it's interesting because it says in the figures the drop was driven largely by a 61% fall in arrivals from China.
But you're saying you expect that they will come back just in the next couple of months.
Yeah, I would think so, because Chinese tourists really love Japanese products and a lot of tourists come here not so much for sightseeing but for shopping mostly.
So they will buy things in Japan and then resell it in China.
So since a lot of it is focused on trade, I think they will come back at some point.
I mean now the tensions are very high between Japan and China and the prime minister of Japan isn't really helping by antagonizing China and making bold statements.
So hopefully she will understand that impact on the economy is to such an extent that she should pipe down a little and try to smooth things over with China.
It's interesting, the weak yen has actually enticed tourists from elsewhere.
Have you seen that there's an uptick in tourists coming to Japan from countries that wouldn't maybe have necessarily been regular goers to Japan?
Oh yeah, for sure.
Like there's an uptake in clients from the Middle East, from India, from Nepal, from Latin America countries that need a visa in order to travel to Japan.
So it's rather difficult for them to come to japan, but still, because of the low yen, they're willing to take the chance.
Try to get the visa and see what the fuss is all about.
That was nikki yoshihara, the owner of tokyo tours.
Okay, a new round of vaccinations is being rolled out this weekend in south africa and a bid to contain the spread of its worst ever foot and mouth disease.
That's the sound of cattle being vaccinated against the disease in Cape Town, with hundreds of cases recorded across the country.
It's putting a huge strain on farmers.
Export markets are being shut off.
The movement of cattle is restricted and the losses are already running into the hundreds of millions.
Christopher Shazy is a cattle farmer in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, who has been directly affected by the outbreak.
Since December, it's been bad.
Only about a week ago, where animals, they start healing on their hooves.
And we had some couple of animals that died.
And what has that done for you as a farmer and your livelihood?
It's very bad, since we are not doing anything other than working in the morning looking after the cattle.
We can't sell, can't do anything.
We're just stuck.
And essentially, you can't make money from this anymore because they're sick.
Yes, yes, yes.
We are not making any money out of it.
Even the auctions are closed.
They are not in operation.
And so what does that do to you personally and financially?
There's a very huge gap, especially because we are relying on farming, especially for our school fees, kids' school fees, even medication for the animals, medication for ourselves.
It's very bad.
We are stuck.
We are stuck because we ended up not having even a fuel to run over the crop section.
Do you see any way out of this for you?
We're just crossing our fingers if the government can speed up the process of the vaccine as they promise.
If they can speed up that, then maybe we'll have some more animals left for us to continue the business.
But until then, you're struggling on.
You don't have any income.
We don't have any income, even money to buy, to purchase medication.
We are struggling.
We end up using, like your hand, sanitizers just to clean the hooves and to sanitize the hooves and the tongue.
That must be very difficult for you as a farmer watching that, watching your animals suffer.
It's very difficult.
Yeah, I can hear the emotion in your voice.
It is very difficult.
It is.
Every morning, the only thing we do is to go to the field, check on the animals, whatever that is still sick.
We attend to that, and then we bring it back to the crop and then we attend to it, we take it back to the field.
We don't even quarantine now because we will quarantine until when?
Since we don't have a vaccine.
We'll continue to follow the story.
That was Christopher Shazy, who's a cattle farmer in South Africa.
Meta's boss, Mark Zuckerberg, is due to take the stand later in the civil trial accusing YouTube and Instagram of intentionally creating so-called addiction machines.
Jurors in the landmark lawsuit are being asked to determine if social media platforms are responsible for causing mental health issues and addiction.
Then in Gabon, the media regulator has switched off Facebook and TikTok.
It's blaming online content for stoking conflict and division in society.
UK inflation dropped to its lowest level since March 2025.
So does this strengthen the case for an interest rate cut?
With us now, Emma Wall, Chief Investment Strategist for Hargreaves Lansdowne.
First of all, Emma, what slowed down price rises?
You're right.
This is the lowest that we've seen inflation in 10 months.
So inflation for January down to 3% from 3.4% the previous month.
What's really interesting is it's not just the headline CPI rate that's fallen, but also the core rate and services as well.
So some of the biggest downward pressure on that headline figure are fuel and food.
But if you strip out fuel, food and alcohol, which typically can be quite volatile, and you're just left with core inflation, That's also falling, as is services inflation, which has previously been quite sticky, which altogether means that we think that actually the trajectory from here is that the UK will finally hit its inflation target rate of 2 later this year.
And so what do you think the Bank of England will make of it?
I think it pretty much nails on a cut next month following the jobs data yesterday.
And the vote was split earlier this month, 5-4.
So it was going that way anyway.
What will be really key from here is the cadence and the philosophy of cuts.
So we only think there's two cuts this year.
Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey has been very data-led in his decisions.
Very go.
Emma Wall, thank you so much for joining us, and it is the first day of Ramadan.
It's not just a time for fasting, prayer and charity for billions of Muslims, but there's a lot of spending going on.
Nielsen says sales of some grocery items go up by 50.
There you are, and that is it from World Business Express, from the BBC World Service.
I'm Leanna Byrne.
Please subscribe to get the latest from us.
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Have a great day.
Thanks so much for listening, And with world-class service in the Emirates Lounge and exceptional comfort on board, it's just a better way to do business.
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