Japanese love leisure more than ever but turn thrifty
In a survey, those who answered they attached importance to leisure rather than to work, including study, last year accounted for 67.8% of the total respondents, the highest reading since comparable data became available in 2009, the Japan Productivity Center said in its 2025 Leisure White Paper, released last week.
Among respondents who took part in at least one spare-time activity in 2024, "domestic pleasure trip" enjoyed the highest participation rate of 48.3%, proving to be the most popular way of having fun for three years in a row.
However, the figure is lower than 48.7% in the previous survey and far short of the 2019 prepandemic level of 54.3%.
"Recent price spikes are believed to have made many people cautious about spending on travel," a JPC official said.
"Video viewing" emerged as the second most popular leisure activity with the participation rate of 38.1%, up 1.1 percentage points year on year, while "eating out" descended from second to third with the rate dropping 3.6 points to 35.6%.
Those results as well suggest that elevated inflation has been keeping Japanese people from splurging on leisure activities.
The nationwide survey was conducted online in February, and 3,467 people gave valid responses.
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