I drove Chinese tourists in Japan — now I’ve been out of work for six months

A Nagoya driver left adrift

A Chinese driver in Nagoya known as Lin (林桑) says he has been effectively unemployed for six months after years of running package car tours for mainland visitors. Lin, born in 1995 and raised in Japan since middle school, told Huxiu he once relied on bookings routed through Chinese online travel agencies such as Fliggy (飞猪) and Ctrip (携程) to fill his calendar. Peak-season day rates of roughly RMB 2,500–3,000 and sustained twenty-day months could translate into household-changing incomes; now he is taking odd jobs — moving fish at dawn, hauling heavy crates — just to get by.

Flight cuts, fewer Chinese visitors, and a sudden policy squeeze

Japan’s tourism agency reported a sharp drop in mainland Chinese arrivals in recent months — February arrivals fell about 45% year‑on‑year, and January even more — after a previous rebound that made China the largest source market. Where did the traffic go? Some routes and flights were cut as carriers retrenched amid widening regional tensions, and Nagoya’s international links were particularly hit; Tokyo has absorbed much of the remaining demand, but smaller gateway cities have not. It has been reported that this demand shock was compounded by a hard enforcement drive against so‑called “white‑plate” private cars — many mainland‑facing drivers who operated without formal Japanese commercial licences — leaving a large cohort of Chinese drivers suddenly without customers or legal ways to operate.

Two markets, two realities

The result is a bifurcated market: licensed, local drivers plugged into Japanese associations continue to access a diverse mix of Korean, Western and domestic tourists, while China‑facing drivers who depended on Chinese OTAs or informal networks have been hollowed out. Where once a single platform listing could keep a car busy, now orders rarely arrive. Some drivers have pivoted to construction work or returned to China. Who bears the cost? The visible crowds at tourist sites hide a fragile ecosystem of cross‑border travel, digital platforms and informal labour that can unravel quickly when geopolitics, airline capacity and local enforcement converge. It has been reported that many in this niche are still scrambling for livelihoods.