Japan’s tourism reboot begins with a whimper

19 comments

1. Well yeah pretty expected if the “trial” ended a week ago. Hopefully the combined Keidanren / G7 commerce orgs statement will push some momentum towards a more complete reopening – might finally be realistic to expect something genuine by August / September.

2. You mean when I was told there was all that interest and people trying to bust down the door it was just bull? How could the internet lie to me like that?

3. [removed]

4. “The next challenge will be how to make individual travelers follow the rules in Japan without the oversight of tour guides. In other words, Japan may need to further relax mask-wearing customs and other rules inside the country before it can accept them.”

   The same way you get other people to follow rules? Signs? Translated notices? It’s not rocket science.

5. Did they really think they would make an announcement and 48 hours later, planes would be filled with tour groups? Just thinking on a timeline, it seems any uptick after their “government authorized tour groups now welcome” announcement wouldn’t occur for at least 6 weeks anyway. People need time to check their savings or budget, make reservations, make arrangements for work, school, patcare, whatever.

6. We are in line with other G-7 nations, boys

7. This whole thing feels like an elaborate troll

8. its a shame the media holds water for the xenophobic Kishida administration, these North Korea style monitor tours need to be ridiculed endlessly.

9. *sigh* just to see if it was possible I checked how much a tour would cost me and my husband. We’re planning to go for our honeymoon in September and have a budget of about 2200 euro for 10 days. The cheapest tour are about 3200 for 10 days so it’s just not feasible 🙁 I really hope they allow tourist traveling on our own soon.

10. Hahahahaha just let them fumble until the election then they will open up.

11. yen might be 150 to $1 by the time election is done.

12. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20220610_19/

    > An association of licensed tour guides in Japan says it has yet to receive requests to escort foreign tourists despite the reopening of the country’s borders. Officials of the Japan Federation of Certified Guides, or JFG, say they have only received a few orders so far and they are all for tours next year.

13. Just too much of a hassle to bother for a tourist I’m guessing. Who’d have thought.
    Then again with all the regulations bureaucracy is a slow beast. Who knows, maybe a hand full of tour groups will come in a few weeks.

14. All the tours are horse shit waste of money, just wait till they open up fully

15. This is seriously just a bullshit excuse transition period to work out the right way to suck teeth when things actually start. The floodgates will open soon, but most of the potential clientele are going to be locked in their apartments back home, so there will be a filter on overall volume regardless of the level of competence of the muppets in charge.

16. John Daub, the Youtuber who lives in Japan, said he could not find any information about signing up for a tour. He said he scoured both Japanese and English tour sites. So yeah this opening is horseshit. It’s almost a troll as someone else said. If the government was serious about opening to tour groups, the big travel agencies would have been prepared to offer something or have some kind of information. The fact that they don’t meant they were not told of anything until the absolute last minute.

17. Who wants to be escorted around Japan!? The reason I would visit Japan (Again) is because I don’t need a tour guide or need to be “escorted” around. What is this North Korea?

18. In 2014 a 15 hour flight from Vancouver(YVR) to Tokyo(HND) was CAD$680, now it’s CAD$3000 for a 17 hour flight and the 15 hour flights are CAD$11,000. As much as anyone would like to go to Japan, it’s cost prohibitive now.

19. japan does’nt want tourists it’s obvious I’m just curious how those street vendors have been getting by the last 2 years