This year was supposed to be a bumper year for Japan’s tourism industry. Still riding on the glow of the 2019 Men’s Rugby World Cup in September last year, 2020 would shine a spotlight on the nation once again with the Summer Tokyo Olympics.
Instead in April, which would normally see a buzz of tourists for the famed cherry blossom season, the country saw a 99.9 per cent drop in visitors year-on-year as people around the world were told to stay at home amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Yesterday, we reported that the Japanese government was considering plans to pay for half of the airfares of tourists wanting to visit this year in a bid to boost tourism - but it wasn’t clear if this was for international or domestic travellers.
Overnight, the Japan Tourism Agency has clarified in a series of tweets that the campaign under consideration is 'to stimulate domestic travel demand within Japan after the Covid-19 pandemic and only cover a portion of domestic travel expenses'.
This means the proposed plans do not apply to international visitors.
At the original press conference last Wednesday, The Japan Times reported that Hiroshi Tabata of the Japan Tourism Agency said that the Japanese government plans to allocate $12.5 billion (£10.2 billion) to a new reimbursement programme that could launch as soon as July.
But it seems this reimbursement plan will apply solely to domestic travellers.
However, international travellers should look to Sicily instead, the Italian island which said it will pay for half the cost of flights and a third of the hotel room fee for tourists wanting to visit in autumn.
- This story was updated on Wednesday, May 27 to reflect the new advice from the Japanese government.
