Tourism Hopes And Fears As Japan Ends Pandemic Isolation

After more than two years of near-total isolation, Japan has reopened its borders to overseas visitors but the road back to the pre-Covid tourism boom could be long and bumpy.

- Justin McCurry

Last week, the country lifted some of the strictest pandemic border controls in the world when it removed a cap of 50,000 arrivals a day, reinstated waivers for short term visas and dropped a rule requiring tourists to visit as part of group tours.

The prime minister, Fumio Kishida, is pinning his hopes on free-spending visitors taking advantage of a weak yen, which recently reached a 32-year low against the dollar, to boost businesses and resurrect Japan’s reputation as one of the world’s must-see countries.

In Gion, a popular district in Kyoto, local shop owners greeted the return of tourists with a mixture of optimism and trepidation. The last couple of years have been really tough,” said Hiroko Inoue, the owner of Furouan, a kimono shop. There were no foreign visitors and very few Japanese tourists. My guess is that sales were less than 1% of those before Covid-19.”

Just over 500,000 foreign visitors have come to Japan so far this year, a fraction of the record 31.8 million who arrived in 2019.