Tokyo - Having grown up during years of economic slumps and now seeing their country in a recession, young Japanese are bucking their national image of being globe-trotters and are preferring to stay at home.

Home is not only more comfortable, but overseas travel has lost the allure that it used to have.

"The number of young Japanese [customers] has dropped notably in the last years, and that's crucial for us," said Yumi Isozaki, a spokeswoman for the Japan Association of Travel Agents.

Overworked, they can't get enough holidays. Stuck in low-paying jobs, they can't afford the high cost of travelling. They don't want to be bothered by all the troubles that come with flying to another country, and they have a much quicker and painless way to see the world anyway: the internet.

According to a survey conducted for the association, Japanese in their 20s and 30s are not only concerned about the recent economic downturn, but they also don't see a special value in world travel.

With the development of the internet, the tech-savvy generation prefers virtual travel, which can be done while sitting in a more accustomed environment, rather than real-life trips to unknown surroundings.

They can also visit villages designed to look like those in Germany, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Italy and Canada on their own small island nation. Even the world's major tourists sites are crammed into one theme park at 1/25th of their original size.

As a result, the number of Japanese in their 20s and 30s who are travelling abroad fell 16 per cent in 10 years to 6.5 million in 2007.

"My co-workers say, 'We can have enough fun here at home without going abroad. Tokyo has everything,'" said Kanako Muramatsu, 33, who works at a reception desk of a 24-hour massage clinic in central Tokyo.

While her colleagues might not be too interested in braving long flights abroad, different languages and "dangerous" foreign cities, Muramatsu wants to travel out of the country at least once a year, she said.

"Overseas travel is undoubtedly expensive, but the time factor poses the biggest obstacle for me," she said. "I want to go abroad, but my work schedule won't let me."

Muramatsu said she would consider herself lucky to get the maximum of five consecutive days off for her vacation a year - and that would happen only if she notifies her company months in advance, she said.

Busy with work, many Japanese prefer to relax on vacation, if they get any, rather than travelling abroad, according to a survey conducted by the Association of Travel Agents.

Another woman in her 20s said she chose to spend a week of vacation on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, where she could lie on the beach rather than hustling abroad, she said.

To some young people, overseas journeys add to their fatigue. The impression might have been reinforced by package tours that Japanese travel bureaus offer, industry experts said.

Such tours often pack in visits to numerous sites, sometimes extending to several nations.

A recent travel advertisement on a European tour, for instance, guarantees visits to Frankfurt and Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany, Zurich, Geneva and Paris as well as World Heritage sites, such as Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany and Mont Saint-Michel in France - all in five days.

The unpopular scene of Japanese travellers getting off buses, posing for a picture or two in front of famous sites, hopping back on the bus and disappearing to the next place has been enforced by such tight travel schedules.

Having experienced such itineraries earlier in life with their parents, young Japanese don't mind remotely accessing such tourist sites from home.

Nearly 20 per cent of the teens and 15 per cent of 20-somethings surveyed by the Association of Travel Agents said they don't feel the urge to get out and see the world because they can learn about other countries via television and the internet.

For more than 70 per cent of the 4,740 people surveyed, getting passports or renewing them is already too much trouble. More than 50 per cent are too lazy to even reach the airport, the survey found.

"A while back, overseas travel was considered an annual big event in the lives of people" who are now in their 50s and 60s, Isozaki said. "But for young people who have experience going or living abroad, it's not anything special." (dpa)