Osaka City and Sapporo will be excluded as travel destinations for the government-subsidized Go To Travel tourism promotion campaign until Dec. 15 as part of efforts to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, the government announced on Tuesday. Travel agencies will stop accepting new bookings as soon as their systems are adjusted. Pre-booked trips scheduled to arrive in these cities from Dec. 2 to Dec. 15 will also be excluded from the campaign.
During this period, travelers to these cities will not be able to receive discounts of up to 35%, or up to 14,000, yen on their travel expenses. Nor will shopping coupons for use at travel destinations be issued.
However, trips departing from these cities will continue to be subsidized.
If pre-booked trips to these cities are canceled by Dec. 3, the government will compensate hotels and travel agencies for the equivalent of 35% of the trip cost, and travelers will not have to bear cancellation fees.
Prior to the decision, the Osaka and Hokkaido prefectural governments respectively asked the central government to exclude Osaka City and Sapporo from the Go To Travel campaign.
"We need to avoid straining the health care system in both cities where infection has spread to a considerable extent. As a preventive measure, we came to conclude that a temporary suspension is inevitable," Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister Kazuyoshi Akaba, who is in charge of the campaign, told reporters on Tuesday night.
As for trips arriving on or after Dec. 16, Akaba said, "If the situations of hospital beds are on an improvement track, we will bring them back [into the subsidy campaign] in principle."
On Tuesday, the central government requested prefectural governments to consider suspending the issuance of new coupons for the Go To Eat campaign to support the food-service industry, based on their infection situations. It also requested the prefectural governments to ask consumers to refrain from using the coupons already issued and reward points acquired through online reservations.
In addition, the central government decided to relax the conditions for providing financial support to local governments that request restaurants and bars to take measures such as shortening opening hours.
Yasutoshi Nishimura, minister in charge of economic revitalization, said to reporters, "The central government has to provide firm support so that the prefectural governments will not hesitate [to ask for shorter opening hours] due to limited financial resources."
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