Japanese Tourists Love New York A Little Less Each Year

A breakdown of the city's latest tourism estimates suggests that Britons (1.46 million), Canadians (880,000), and Germans (470,000) comprised the biggest crowds of international visitors to New York in 2007.

Numbers were up among all groups last year -- including the roughly 300,000 residents of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, weirdly categorized as "BeNeLux" -- except for one, the Japanese.

About 15,000 fewer of them visited the Big Apple last year (260,000) compared to 2006. In fact, the number of Japanese tourists has declined steadily since 2004, city figures show.

Perhaps the city's tourism office should fire up a new marketing campaign featuring the popular Taiwanese boy band F4, who were recently credited with luring Japanese vistors to Taipei.