Pressure Builds to Reopen Japan to Tourists

SNA Travel (Tokyo) — Representatives of Japan’s tourism industry are stepping up pressure on the Kishida administration to accelerate the country’s reopening to foreign visitors.

“We believe the weaker yen will help the tourism industry, and we see this as a business tailwind. This should be a great opportunity for the government to bring tourists back to Japan,” Japan Association of Travel Agents Chairman Hiroyuki Takahashi said this week.

Other organizations lobbying the government for opening the borders include the Japan Hotel Association, as well as major airlines and railway companies.

A formal request from these business groups was submitted to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, specifically asking that the daily cap on entrants to Japan be abolished.

At present, the Kishida government has decided to raise the entry cap from 10,000 to 20,000 people per day beginning in June, but it still intends to maintain the controls.

Other nations in the Asia-Pacific, including those that had imposed strict national isolation policies in 2020 and 2021, have been announcing drastic relaxations or the abolishment of such policies one after another, making Japan increasingly an outlier.

Tourist industry-affiliated lawmakers within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party are also applying pressure. One such parliamentary group issued a resolution observing, “If Japan is the only nation which continues to take strict measures, then we may be left behind from the rest of the world.”

The lawmakers want the daily cap on visitors lifted, as well as simplified Covid testing and quarantine procedures.

As for the general public, the latest poll by Japan News Network finds that 48% of Japanese believe that border controls should now be eased, while 38% want the strict entry policies to be maintained.