Pre-booked trips to destinations where novel coronavirus cases are rapidly increasing will be excluded from the government's Go To Travel tourism promotion campaign, Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister Kazuyoshi Akaba said at a press conference on Tuesday.
The government will be offering compensation for cancellation fees so that people who have already booked trips to excluded areas will not have to shoulder the burden.
The exclusion period is expected to be about three weeks.
Operators will receive the equivalent of 35% of the cost of the pre-booked trip to avoid losses.
Subsidy exclusions and the suspension of new bookings to excluded areas are being implemented together in an effort to curb the spread of infections.
However, subsidies for travel from areas where infections are rising will still be available.
"It is necessary to stop the spread of infections before the medical system is incapacitated and a state of emergency is declared. Taking decisions by prefectural governors into consideration, we want campaign exclusions for a certain period of time as part of preventive measures," Akaba said.
When a prefecture issues a Level 3 alert, the second most serious in the four-tier system proposed by the central government's subcommittee on measures against COVID-19, the prefectural governor can decide whether to exclude an area from the campaign after discussions with the central government.
Discounts of up to 35%, or up to 14,000, yen off travel fees and shopping coupons can be used for trips under the campaign, which is aimed at boosting the beleaguered domestic tourism industry amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The campaign launched in July but excluded Tokyo, which was subsequently added in October.
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