It has been over two years since the outbreak of coronaviruses. While the Pandemic is still very much a thing, we have mostly seen countries try to get back to normal. Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore are now open to tourists with little restrictions, even though they were initially the most conservative.
Japan is one of my favorite countries in the world and I would love to go back. The country is still closed to most tourists with no sign of a reopening. What is the most recent on that?
Japan does not allow tourists from a lot of countries to enter. It is not that Japan's borders are closed but that they are closed to visitors.
The residents of Japan can travel to other countries without being held back. Japan will no longer require a coronaviruses test before travelling to the country. It was pre-pandemic when it came to travelling abroad for Japanese travelers.
Japan is not following a zero coronaviruses strategy. The country has the worst outbreak of coronaviruses since the beginning of the epidemic, and Japan doesn't have the same vaccine rate as other countries in Asia.
We haven't seen a proposal from the Japanese government for a widespread reopening of tourism, but we have seen a number of small measures suggested.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida suggested back in May that Japan would ease border controls as of June 2022, in order to be in line with other G7 countries. At least it impacts tourists.
With the exception of China, most destinations have once again reopened to tourists, except for Japan, which has been closed since the beginning of the year.
Japan had a booming tourism industry prior to the Pandemic. The country had 32 million foreign visitors and they spent $4 billion in the country. Why isn't the country restarting the tourism industry?
Even though Japan is known for being so hospitable, the only reasonable conclusion is that the Japanese public doesn't want foreign tourists. Survey after survey shows that the Japanese public supports keeping border measures in place against foreigners.
The impact of this on those who work in the tourism sector is terrible, but it is a minority of the Japanese population. Some people are happy to have their own country.
I think I can't fault them. People living in Japan can enjoy their country in a way that hasn't been possible in a long time, and they can also leave the country and go somewhere else.
I wonder if Japan just wants to remain closed to foreigners in the long run, or if it is waiting for the right time to open its borders to foreigners. I don't think there will be much change.
The borders of Japan are still closed to most foreign tourists. Japanese travelers can leave the country freely and return without any restrictions, and Japan has a lot of coronaviruses.
The Japanese public supports keeping borders closed to self-guided tourists, despite that. Japan is in a league of its own when it comes to the amount to which it explicitly banning tourists, rather than having strict border measures in order to pursue a zero tolerance approach towards coronaviruses.
Is it time for Japan to open its borders to tourists on a large scale?
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