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Japan Is Allowing 50,000 Visitors Daily With Non-Guided Package Tours Starting 7 September

by Tracy J. Chu

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced on 31 August that Japan will allow more than double the number of daily visitors as well as non-guided package tours.

As per the announcement, Japan will let 50,000 people enter the country daily starting 7 September. The current figure stands at 20,000.

japan-to-allow-non-guided-tourism-and-raise-daily-entry-caps” data-ylk=”slk:Bloomberg” class=”link “Bloomberg reports that Kishida also said that he wanted to increase visits from people trying to take advantage of a cheap Japanese yen and, as such, wanted to ease border controls.

How Japan started its reopening

Initial rules were extremely strict

Japan

Image credit: Jezael Melgoza/@jezar/Unsplash

Japan opened its doors to foreign tourists in June under a series of strict rules including that visitors will have to take guided tours, be triple vaccinated, and have private medical insurance.

kishida-covid/” data-ylk=”slk:The Japan Times” class=”link “The Japan Times noted that foreign tourists who are visiting under the strict guided package tours are unhappy with the system. This has also resulted in a very small number of visitors to the country.

Though the latest announcement makes allowance for non-guided packaged tours, The Japan Times report says that the details of what is meant by a “packaged tour” was not made immediately clear.

Aim to boost Japan’s tourism economy

In any case, the 31 August announcement is the latest in a series of decisions Japan has taken in the recent months to ease its extremely strict COVID-19 rules and bring the country’s border measures closer to the systems in place in the Group of Seven nations — an aim that Kishida had revealed in May.

The easing of restrictions is, of course, designed to give a boost to Japan’sJapan’s ailing tourism industry. As per Bloomberg, while there were 31.9 million foreign visitors in 2019, the figure

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Japan further eases border controls for tourists, allowing non-guided package tours

by Tracy J. Chu

TOKYO: Tourists will be able to visit Japan from next week on package tours without a guide, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Wednesday (Aug 31), as the country moves to ease strict COVID-19 controls.

From Sep 7, Japan will also raise its daily cap on the number of people allowed to enter the country from 20,000 to 50,000, Kishida told reporters.

Japan has kept strict border restrictions in place longer than many other major economies, and only in June began allowing tourists to visit on the condition they came in tour groups accompanied by guides.

“As international exchange becomes more active worldwide, Japan will join this movement – also from the viewpoint of taking advantage of a cheap yen,” said Kishida, who has himself just recovered from COVID-19.

From the same date, “we’ll also make it possible for tourists from all countries to enter the country on package tours without tour guides, and we will proceed with making entry procedures smoother at airports”, he added.

But the measures fall short of a full reopening and visitors are still required to book their trips through agents and obtain visas.

Public broadcaster NHK and other local media have reported that tourists will be asked to follow isolation guidelines if they test positive for COVID-19 in Japan.

Kishida said he hoped to ease border restrictions further, with industry officials keen to see the return of a waiver programme that allowed tourists from much of the world to visit without a visa.

Japan hopes to eventually “enable smooth entry” in line with other Group of Seven countries, he added.

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