Japan will soon be welcoming tourists back for the first time since the pandemic began…but only 50 of them.
Japan Will Reopen Borders – But Only 50 Tourists (Total) Will Be Allowed
In a move that can only be described as odd, Japan will begin welcoming tourist groups again this month, but capping the number of tourists at 50 (that’s total – not per day or per group). All travelers must be vaccinated and boosted and each tour group will be capped at four travelers. Tourists will be drawn from:
- Australia
- Singapore
- Thailand
- United States
(These are deemed “priority markets” by Japan)
The Japanese T0urism Agency explains:
[T]he limited visits will be used to test coronavirus measures, including infection prevention and emergency response. Information will be sent to travel agencies, hotels and other travel businesses. Visitors must be accompanied by a tour guide and can only go to areas where there is not a state of emergency and government officials have agreed to welcome them.
I’m really unclear how such a small sample size will be instructive in helping Japan verify if its coronavirus measures in place are sufficient. I’m also skeptical that Japan will open its borders to tourism next month, as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida indicated while visiting London earlier this month.
CONCLUSION
If you were hoping to get to Japan next month as a tourist, I would certainly have a back-up plan ready. Japan has dropped from 8,000,000 foreign visitors in the period between January – March 2019 to just 100,000 during the same period in 2022. With foreign tourism an important part of the Japanese economy, hopefully this experiment will pave the way for a reopening of the country, but Japan has consistently demonstrated a more cautious approach to its borders during the pandemic.
Only 4 countries and the US is one of them?? So is it about safety or money? And I’m not sure tour group travel is safer than independent travel. But it’s a start to credit to that…I guess?
Meanwhile, most of the world spreads its legs for them. But don’t worry, once they do open, they’ll still try as hard as possible to avoid contact with foreigners, pre-pandemic style.
Absolutely brilliant solution. It honors the PM’s promise to open borders to tourists next month and with no risk of increasing Japan’s case numbers. Everybody wins.
even more pointless when you learn it’s about ACTIVATION, not spread.
He must know Joe. Brandon’s insistence on tests before USA arrival is surely having a beneficial effect on the Covid infections here. Probably reduces tourist numbers too.
Not really.
Whilst my comment was somewhat tongue in cheek, yes really. I know several people in England who will not visit the USA until stops this testing nonsense.
No you don’t.
Yeah sure you do. You can get a lateral flow test that meets the US requirements with a 1 hour turnaround for £20. Did it last month no problem. If that’s stopping you from traveling then I don’t know how you afford plane tickets or deal with the hassle of airports.
I’d also be happy ending that requirement, but let’s be real it’s not stopping anyone
Have they tried wearing masks? Nothing can beat a mask, this is a proven fact.
Correct. N95 masks
yup..nothing beats a good MASK!
Just ask Taiwan. No flimsy cloth masks there. All surgical or N95. Now reporting 85,000 cases today. Equivalent to 1.2 million / day in USA.
Recent Highwire video on – DEATH OF MASK COMPLIANCE – ends with — study showing INCREASED deaths from more mask use.
Thank God for Highwire! What would we do without them?
Lol. Deli Bigtree is vaxxed himself. He plays his audience for fools.
No you don’t.
No thanks on the masks
I wonder if they’re being so cautious because of their aged populace, declining birth rate, and population density.
lmao what.
Exciting news for JAL and ANA. They must be increasing capacity as we speak to meet what should be unprecedented demand. Going to be interesting to see if they will be able to staff properly with such short notice to accommodate these 50 people.
There was a study in the nytimes of how much worse the US response to covid was compared to Australia. We killed more people, and had the bloody lockdown. We got the worst of all the worlds. Americans are self centered, selfish and don’t care about community. Completely opposite of japan. I think japan should try to keep as little exposure to Americans as possible.
and how’d that work out in Australia?
How’s it going in Taiwan? Check how many “cases” they reported today…..that’s right 85,000. Yet clinging to masks & quarantine. Oh that’s equivalent to about 1.2 million cases in the USA / day. Yet, we won’t see any headlines about this. Cause the US media is “tightly controlled.” Yeah…NY Times is part of that.
nevermind 99.75% of cases are mild/nothing..but that’s down to environmental factors more.
Maybe they started taking their masks off and this is why they have a spike all of a sudden?
“99.75% of cases are mild/nothing”
A bit lower than that.
How do you know the number wouldn’t be 170,00 without masks? Where did you study infectious diseases?
Stop reading the new York times. You will be not informed.
I picture a libtard making this comment.
Japan is being smart about this. Tour groups can be isolated. That is what Palau did with tourists from Taiwan. No quarantine but have to stick with the tour group. They can test the bugs and expand from 50 to 1,000 later.
This is about as dumb as requiring the testing requirement to enter the US.
Lol, Japan are clearly not hard up for tourists…
This is clearly a way for Japan to state that they are opening their borders without taking any significant action.
Let’s face it. Japan does not want tourists.
Their relentless campaign to attract tourists was too successful..now they don’t want them. Cant say I blame them. The only thing I didn’t like about Japan was too many tourists
That’s not even the worst of it. The tour groups can only visit prefectures that have opted into the tour program. Osaka and Tokyo have not opted in. You can’t even visit the places you would want to go anyway.
really who cares about japan… the worst country in the world by far