The central government will provide about 300 billion yen in financial support to prefectural governments for local tourism promotion campaigns, the tourism ministry announced Friday.
The subsidy will cover up to 7,000 yen per night for local residents that stay in hotels, ryokan inns or other accommodation facilities in their prefecture.
The funds will be available for prefectures in stage 1 or 2 on the coronavirus alert scale, in which stage 4 is the most severe level of a scale that is determined by indicators such as the number of coronavirus cases. As things stand, Tokyo, Osaka Prefecture and some other prefectures would be excluded from the new subsidy program. Travel across prefectural borders also is not covered.
According to the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry, the financial support will be rolled out from April 1 and cover overnight stays through May 31. The subsidies will cover a maximum of 5,000, yen or 50%, of the price of a stay per person per night, plus vouchers worth up to 2,000 yen that can be used at restaurants and on transport networks in the region.
At least 20 prefectures, including Fukushima, Gunma, Hyogo and Oita, run their own tourism promotion operations. The National Governors' Association and other entities had been pressing the government to provide support for these initiatives.
This financial support is being positioned as an alternative measure to the government's Go To Travel tourism support program, which has been suspended nationwide since December last year and is unlikely to restart before the end of May.
"If the campaign cannot be resumed, the government will probably continue providing support to local governments," Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister Kazuyoshi Akaba said at a press conference after a Cabinet meeting on Friday.
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