It doesn’t have enough foreign tourists, so it has zero. It could use more.
Japan’s borders are closed to tourists, just like many other Asian countries, such as Taiwan, Vietnam, and Australia. While many Asian countries are slowly opening their borders, Japan’s borders will likely be closed for some time. This is a problem for many Japanese businesses, which rely on foreign tourists (32 million in 2019), before the pandemic.
“Foreigners are more sensitive to ‘kawaii!’ than Japanese. Manager Yui Yoshida said that they use ‘Kawaii!’ the same way as they use ‘Wonderful’, Awesome’, or ‘Lovely’. Yui Yoshida noted that Japanese use the word mostly for tangible items like cute puppies.
She said, “We had so many international customers before the pandemic.” “Then suddenly, no one could get there.”
6%DOKIDOKI was founded 26 years ago. It has a loyal following. When it was threatened by the pandemic, its supporters from Japan and abroad started crowd-funding campaigns. It has also increased mail-order sales, introduced face masks in a psychedelic frenzy of colors and bear-shaped pouches that can be used to carry hand sanitizers.
Yoshida doesn’t anticipate foreign visitors returning until next year’s cherry blossom season.
Even optimistically, this is possible.
Although mandatory quarantine requirements for Japan have been relaxed somewhat following the plunge in the number of coronavirus cases from hundreds to a few dozen per hour in Tokyo, Japan is still closed to foreign tourists, unlike Bali, Indonesia, and other destinations in Thailand.
Japan effectively bans foreign students and business travellers. Much-criticized exception was made earlier in the year for officials and athletes arriving at the Tokyo Olympics.
According to Kotaro Toriumi (a travel books author and tourism analyst), people are still nervous about traveling abroad in this “island culture”.
Toriumi, a professor at Tokyo’s Teikyo University believes that foreign tourism will not revive for another year or so, even though 73% of Japanese have been fully vaccinated. This is a higher rate than in most Asian countries except Singapore.
He said that even if Japan’s borders are reopened, tourism will not revive if Japan continues to require 10 day quarantines for travelers from overseas.
Toriumi, who just returned from a business trip in France, said that even one day of quarantine would be enough to stop tourism. 1 destination for global tourists.
It is important to know if COVID-19 cases can be controlled. Experts in medicine worry that infections could recur in another season.
The government plans to relaunch its GoTo domestic travel promotion, which offers discounts on travel, lodging, and other purchases. The program was cancelled last year after the virus returned and it took five months for the program to be canceled.
According to the Japan Travel Bureau Foundation, the campaign generated revenue of nearly 1.8 trillion Japanese yen ($16billion) from 52.6 million Japan-based travelers.
However, domestic travel cannot offset the loss of business due to the tens of million of foreign tourists.
In 2014, Japan’s tourism from overseas began to boom. This was strongly encouraged by Shinzo Abe, then-Prime Minister. According to the World Travel & Tourism Council, the tourism and travel sector contributed 7.1% of Japan’s GDP in 2019.
The 2020 target was 40 million. Instead, visitors declined after the New Year holiday. Pandemic travel restrictions were implemented. Tourism and travel revenues accounted for 4.7% of the economy. According to the council, the number of people who work in tourism and travel (including those working at hotels, airlines and travel agencies) fell to 5.4million from 5.7million.
Foreign tourists spent more than 4 trillion yen ($35billion) annually before the pandemic. The phrase “bakugai” (meaning “explosive shopping”) was coined by Asian tourists intent on hoarding designer goods.
Popular destinations such as Kyoto’s ancient capital were crowded with tourists back then. Today, the majority of tourists are schoolchildren on school trips. The famed Kiyomizu Dara temple, which overlooks the city from its magnificent hillside, has lost about a quarter of the 5,000,000 annual visitors it received before the pandemic. This is despite the recent recovery in domestic travel.
Itsuo Nishida was a temple manager and didn’t want any speculations about when things would return to normal.
He said, “This is the one place that everyone wants to see at least once in his or her life.”
Emiry, a pink-haired clerk at 6%DOKIDOKI (so named because of the “flutter” that cute things give to the heart), says she has only been in the shop during quiet times of the pandemic.
Some shops in Harajuku have been closed, particularly in the back lanes.
Emiry, a pink-haired woman with a sour face, said that only two foreign customers had visited the store recently.
They lived in Japan. They weren’t tourists.
