A record 21.5 million tourists visited Japan in the first six months of the year, a 21-percent increase year on year, official figures showed on Wednesday, despite visitors from Hong Kong dropping by a third over rumours of an earthquake.

"The number exceeded 20 million in six months, the fastest pace ever," the Japan National Tourism Organization said.

The figure in June alone jumped 7.6 percent to 3.4 million due to "increased demand to coincide with school holidays", it said.

The number was boosted by a jump in tourists from mainland China, South Korea, Singapore, India, the United States and Germany.

But the number of travellers from Hong Kong plunged 33.4 percent, with the Japanese travel body citing online rumours warning of a huge quake in Japan.

People from the SAR made nearly 2.7 million trips to Japan in 2024.

Tokyo has set an ambitious target of almost doubling tourist numbers to 60 million annually by 2030.

Authorities say they want to spread tourists more evenly around the country, and to avoid a bottleneck of visitors eager to snap spring cherry blossoms or vivid autumn colours.

But as in other global tourist magnets like Venice in Italy, there has been a growing pushback from residents in destinations such as the ancient capital of Kyoto. (AFP)