Japan reopens for tourists after two-and-a-half years of Covid restrictions

With the goal of slowing the spread of Covid-19, Japan will start allowing visa-free travel to dozens of nations as of this Tuesday. Tourism is expected to stimulate the economy and help offset some of the negative effects of the yen's decline to a 24-year low, according to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
 

Compared to a record 31.8 million tourists in 2019, little over 500,000 people have visited Japan so far in 2022. Prior to both being ruined by the coronavirus, the government had set a goal of 40 million by 2020, scheduled to coincide with the Summer Olympics. 

According to Kishida's remarks from last week, the government wants to increase yearly tourist expenditure to 5 trillion yen ($34.5 billion). But for a sector that has shrunk due to the epidemic, that objective could be too lofty. Government figures show that between 2019 and 2021, hotel employment fell 22 per cent.
 

Only 2.1 trillion yen will be spent by foreign tourists by 2023, and it won't surpass pre-Covid levels until 2025, said economist Takahide Kiuchi of the Nomura Research Institute. 
 

President Yuji Akasaka of flag carrier Japan Airlines Co. told the Nikkei newspaper last week that since the announcement of the border relaxation, incoming reservations had tripled. Nevertheless, he continued, the demand for foreign travel won't fully rebound until about 2025.
 

Japan continues to strongly advise people to keep their voices down and use masks indoors. On Friday, the Cabinet approved amending hotel rules to allow them to turn away visitors who violate infection control procedures during an epidemic. 

Over the past two years, many service employees have discovered better working conditions and pay in other industries, making it challenging to get them back, according to a consultant for travel agencies who wanted to remain anonymous. 

The Japanese government launched its Go To Travel campaign in 2020, which was curtailed due to an increase in COVID infections, and is again launching a domestic travel effort this month that provides travel and lodging savings.