By Rocky SwiftTOKYO (Reuters) - Japan welcomed a record number of visitors in December, official data showed on Wednesday, closing out a year of rapid recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of foreign visitors for business and leisure rose to 2.73 million last month from 2.44 million in November, data from the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) showed. For the full-year 2023, a little more than 25 million visitors arrived in Japan, the agency said. Arrivals exceeded 2 million every month since June last year, boosted by a weakening in the yen that makes Japan cheaper compared to other destinations. That is helping to compensate for a slow recovery in visitors from mainland China, who made up nearly a third of all visitors and 40% of all tourist spending in Japan in 2019.

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Persons: Rocky Swift TOKYO, Teppei Kawanishi, Kawanishi, Wanping Aw, Rocky Swift, Rashmi Aich, Tomasz Janowski Organizations: Japan National Tourism Organization, Tourism, mov Locations: Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Asia, Singapore, Australia, China