TOKYO — Japan said on Tuesday that it will begin conducting “test tourism” in the form of restricted package trips in May in order to gather information ahead to the country’s full re-opening to tourists.
Tourists have been blocked from entering Japan since the country implemented severe border restrictions in 2020, at the outset of the coronavirus epidemic.
The rules have been partially relaxed to allow students and certain business travelers to access. Individual travelers, though, are still forbidden, despite demands from industry executives to revive tourism to capitalize on the yen’s 20-year low.
The Tourism Agency said on Tuesday that it will begin allowing small group tours to enter later this month as “test cases” in order to gather data for a larger reintroduction of tourism at an undefined future date.
Tourists who have been triple-vaccinated and are from the United States, Australia, Thailand, and Singapore will be permitted to participate in the trips, which will be meticulously scheduled in collaboration with travel companies and escorted at all times by tour conductors, according to a statement.
“Through this initiative, we will be able to check compliance and emergency actions for infection prevention, as well as provide rules for travel agents and accommodation companies to follow,” it stated.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida stated earlier this month at a speech in London that he will put Japan’s border restrictions in line with other affluent democracies in June, but no additional specifics have been provided, including when the country’s borders will be fully reopened to visitors.
According to Makoto Shimoaraiso, a Cabinet Secretariat official for Japan’s COVID-19 response, the government is looking for a “phased easing” of border safeguards that balances infection controls with ease of access into the nation.
“We are already considering detailed preparations for border measures after June,” he continued, “including quarantine measures such as testing and standby (status).”
In 2019, 31.9 million international tourists spent 4.81 trillion yen in Japan.
