Japan considers the number of visitors from China who overstay only a minor irritation. Since it first allowed affluent Chinese to enter on package tours four years ago, only 345 had overstayed through the end of last year.

That compares to nearly 30,000 Chinese tourists who visited Japan last year, not counting those who came to visit their relatives. To deter visitors from staying longer than they are allowed to, Chinese tourists pay a 50,000 yuan S$10,500) deposit each to their travel agents.

Japanese travel companies who bring in such tours are banned from operating for a month if tourists under their charge go underground. Japan also allows package tours only from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong province for fear that tourists from poorer parts of China might try to stay on illegally to work. But it is keen to cash in on the China tourist boom. So last month, it was announced that tourist visas would also be granted to residents of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Liaoning and Shandong provinces, and also Tianjin city.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said: `We have been working to attract foreign tourists to Japan under the Visit Japan campaign, and we hope the step will have a major impact.`

Japan wants to double the number of foreign visitors by 2010. Its travel industry views Chinese tourists, many of them free-spending and well-heeled, as a fast-growing segment. Visitor arrivals from China last year reached 816,692. The bulk of the 33,522 Chinese who overstayed last year - 13,466 - were students. Chinese were second only to Koreans as the largest group of overstayers in Japan.