Huge uptick in foreign residents in Okinawa

I saw an article over the weekend via Nikkei Asia which noted that the number of foreign residents in Okinawa Prefecture had grown by a massive 50% in the last two and a half years. A bulk of these new arrivals have found work in the hospitality and tourism sectors, and this doesn't really surprise me a great deal – another article via the Japan Times mentioned that about 886,700 tourists visited Okinawa in the April to October period for 2024, which was a 12.5% increase on 2023.

I think this is a really cool development, both to help fill gaps in the labor market and to increase diversity! As we all know, tourism has gone gangbusters since the borders reopened after the pandemic, and the weak yen certainly helps to incentivize travel here.