While same store sales of supermarkets and convenience stores grew y-o-y moderately, those of department stores declined by 4.0% y-o-y in the second quarter (Chart-17). Duty free sales declined by 15% y-o-y, as Chinese tourists bought less big ticket items than before, affected by the appreciation of the yen and the reviewed Chinese tariffs for individual imports.
Japanese customers accounting for 95% of department store sales have also refrained from buying luxury items, affected by the earthquake in Kumamoto and the plunge of the equity market.
Retail rents of ground floors in the center of Tokyo such as Ginza have been declining to the level seen in 2014 (Chart-18), while retail rents for all floors have not changed noticeably.
The number of foreign visitors grew by 19.0% y-o-y to 5.96 million in the second quarter (Chart-19). Though still increasing, the pace of increase has decelerated from 48% y-o-y in the same quarter 2015, affected by the earthquake in Kumamoto and the appreciation of the yen. Now, further improving hotel occupancy rates looks to be difficult (Chart-20).
The total number of overnight stays in Japan declined by 2.5% y-o-y to 116 million in the second quarter. The appreciation of the yen encouraged Japanese tourists to go overseas, increasing overseas trips by 4.3% y-o-y, thus, the number of overnight stays in Japan by Japanese tourists declined by 4.1 million, or 4.1% (Chart-21). Additionally those by foreign visitors decelerated to grow by only 6.3% y-o-y in the quarter compared to a 50.3% y-o-y growth in 2015.
The largest ever supply of logistics facilities will come into the markets (Chart-22) in both the Tokyo and Osaka metropolitan areas from 2018 to 2020.
Japan Logistics Field Institute forecasts vacancy rates will increase to 9.7% in the Tokyo metropolitan area in 2016. Even with the gigantic new supply, strong demand can absolve most of them. As vacancy rates of logistics facilities built more than a year ago have remained low, new supply should be gradually occupied by 3PL operators based on growing demand for net shopping.
