BY: Kwan Weng Kin, Japan Correspondent

TOKYO, JAPAN: Shop-till-you-drop tours abroad are now passe. Instead, healing holidays for the body and soul are cool.

This change in travel tastes has led to a conspicuous drop in recent years in the number of Japanese female tourists going to shopping paradises around the world, such as Milan's Via Montenapoleone, Los Angeles' Rodeo Drive and Singapore's Orchard Road.

Instead, Japanese women these days are increasingly flocking to more exotic destinations like Cambodia and Vietnam, where they can satisfy their cultural yearnings and pick up a local souvenir or two for their family and friends back home.

China has also seen a tremendous surge in Japanese tourists and is now their top destination.

Shopping tours abroad first took off in the late 1980s at the height of Japan's bubble economy, when a strong yen enabled the Japanese to seemingly buy up whatever was in sight, from Louis Vuitton bags to Hermes scarves.

In 1998, premier department stores like Isetan jumped on the tourism bandwagon, setting up their own travel agencies to sell fashion and shopping tours around the world to the stores' clientele.

As a result, regional destinations such as Singapore and Hong Kong were flooded with free-spending Japanese tourists.

The first signs of change came quietly in the mid-1990s or so when it became the trend for young Japanese, including women, to see the world on tight-budget backpacking tours rather than go on shopping sprees in search of the latest designer goods.

The backpacking boom was sparked by the best-selling book, Midnight Express, written by popular Japanese non-fiction writer Kotaro Sawaki.

The book, which detailed a year-long, overland trip through Asia and Europe by the author, remains a bible today among young Japanese.

'As a student, I wanted to see as many countries as possible and experience their cultures, spending as little money as possible. So I chose backpacking. I especially loved India, Thailand and Canada,' said 34-year-old secretary Hiroko Shimizu.

But even after Japanese women like her started working and could afford a little more luxury, many looked forward, not to trips to designer boutiques in Paris or New York, but to exploring Asia's cultural legacies or just lazing by the beach.

'I was deeply moved by the magnificence of Angkor Wat,' said Ms Ai Toyota, 27, who works in a consulting firm. 'It inspired me to explore the historical buildings where I lived in Japan at the time.'

These days, a holiday for her means taking things really easy.

'I never used to understand European tourists who just read books by the beach and never ever went into the water. Now I do the same thing too. Plus two massages a day,' she said of her recent holiday to Phuket.

Once-fervent shopper Sachiko Nakamura, 60, now also prefers quiet holidays.

'I used to go every year to Singapore, Hong Kong and Hawaii to buy designer clothes, bags and so on. But 10 years ago, I quit. Blame the economy and my husband's retirement!' she said.

The shunning of traditional tour packages that offer sightseeing, gourmet dinners and duty-free shopping is proving to be a headache for Japanese travel agents as well as foreign tourism officials.

Singapore, for instance, received 594,000 Japanese visitors last year, nearly 50 per cent down from the peak of 1.17 million in 1995.

Getting the numbers up again is a challenge for the Singapore Tourism Board (STB).

'While continuing to reach out to the mass market, we are working with Japanese travel agents to meet the growing diversity of interests among Japanese travellers,' said Mr Paul Tan, the Tokyo-based STB regional director for North Asia.

His office created packages for events such as the Singapore Garden Festival, the Singapore Biennale and the ARTSingapore fair.

The STB believes that the two integrated resorts (IRs), now under construction, will be a major tourist draw.

'Once the two IRs and their new attractions are completed, we are confident the numbers from Japan will go up. Besides first-timers, those who have been to Singapore years ago will want to re-

visit the city,' said Mr Tan.

Lately, Japan's outbound travel market has been hit by another bombshell - it has emerged that the number of young Japanese in their 20s travelling abroad has plummeted.

Last year, 2.82 million young Japanese went overseas, a 32 per cent fall from the peak in 2000.

Analysts believe that the instant availability of information on the Internet about foreign cultures is one reason why young Japanese are becoming less eager to visit other countries.

Instead of saving up for a trip, many prefer to spend their money on mobile phones, socialising and hobbies.

Concerned by the situation, the Japan Association of Travel Agents has embarked on a campaign with foreign tourism officials based in Tokyo to boost the number of outbound travellers to 20 million by 2010.

Last year, 17.3 million Japanese took trips overseas.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on August 8, 2008.