1,300 apply for Japan entry since tours reopen as COVID fears ease – The Mainichi

11 comments

1. > Koichi Wada, who heads the Japan Tourism Agency, said at a press conference that over 300 applications have been received for June, with around 1,000 from July onward.

   1,000 from July onward – so, even in the most optimistic scenario that all those people are booked for July, that’s only around 30 tourists per day, as part of the current 20,000 entry allowance. Almost nothing.

   Just as a point of comparison to one of the most closed countries in the world: In 2019, about 120,000 tourists entered North Korea (mostly Chinese), or an average of ~330 per day.

   And Japan had nearly 88,000 entries of foreign tourists per day in 2019.

2. >It has said “appropriate decisions will be made” onfurther relaxations based on factors including the infection situationsat home and abroad.

   This often repeated line is starting to sound like satire at this point with the current state of travel measures in the rest of the world

3. Maybe I’m being optimistic, but the “appropriate decisions will be made” statement and the statement from the JAL president regarding their bottom line getting back into the black is sounding like there may be one of those “sudden” decisions by the government.

   It doesn’t seem unlikely that we’ll be hearing in June sometime soon after the 10th “We have reviewed the data gathered from the tour groups and concluded it is now safe to reopen to individual travel” with absolutely no official heads up.

   But then again, I have no clue what to expect when it comes to these guys making the decisions.

4. I wonder if the borders will open up by october

5. 🤡

6. Wow. So many. That’s huge. Please.

7. And that’s with a weak Yen, too.

8. That’s incredibly few.

9. I wonder what the number looks like if they included the new exemptions for family? Should be at least a few hundred too I imagine.

   My friend’s getting married and both bride and groom have family coming in July through the exemption. My parents also plan to come in August with it.

10. At this rate I’ll probably just go to Korea instead🤷‍♂️ or just buy a new PC, travel just seems ridiculously difficult right now…

11. I love in Barcelona. I applied for a family visa, got it, checked the ticket price, and decided I would go to South Africa instead 🥴