abroadinjapan

When Will Japan Re-Open to Overseas Tourists?

Added 2020-12-01 00:44:55 +0000 UTC

And they said dreams couldn't come true.
At last! The view we came for after 1,000km and 5 days of driving through typhoons and rain.

In case you missed the latest Journey Across Japan episode, featuring Mount Fuji, an actual British theme park and a came from Natsuki, give it a watch! https://youtu.be/RbXJHO1as2g

And of course the Patreon Behind the Scenes episode will be out later this week, so keep an eye out!

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So I’m currently writing this from a shiny, brand new hotel in Takayama, with about 120 rooms, a team of professional, welcoming staff, and a huge wonderful hot spring bathing area. It’s one of the nicest places I’ve stayed in recent memory, and amongst this sprawling hotel I am currently one of six people staying here overnight.

It’s very surreal - it all feels a bit like the Shining.

Wandering the empty corridors with the fresh smell of wood and tatami mats. Sitting alone quietly in the corner of a gigantic hot spring bath, with only the sound of dripping water filling the room.

I’d like to tell you it feels great to have this place to myself, but as I shuffle around the place in silence, I feel sad for the hotel, the staff and the town in general.

Takayama has become a popular tourist destination in recent years for folks who like to come off the beaten path between Tokyo and Kyoto. We actually featured it a few weeks back on Journey Across Japan and many of the comments were full of praise for the rustic streets, the great food and the Showa retro museum and I find myself back for a project with Tokyo Creative to take photos for instagram.

But as a sea of stunning new hotels has emerged around here in recent years - such as the one I find myself in - for nearly all of 2020 they’ve remained quiet and devoid of tourists.

It’s a frustrating situation; I receive a ton of emails, comments and messages everyday asking when Japan will re-open as people are desperate to get over here. Meanwhile the country’s tourism industry is anxiously hoping to get back to business, before more places start to go bankrupt, as numerous hotels already have done.

Perhaps more worryingly I’ve heard folks actually booking flights to Japan early in 2021 and had to warn them that they might find themselves disappointed when they’re refused to board the plane.

As someone who knows quite a few folks in the tourism sector and who spends half the week immersed in news in preparation for the Abroad in Japan Podcast, while I can’t give you an exact answer, it is most likely they’ll re-open the country in stages.

Japan is in a tricky spot. This year the nation hoped to host the 2020 Olympics and welcome 35 million overseas tourists, who would fill up the newly built hotels and inns and take the country’s booming tourism sector to stratospheric new heights.

And then instead of 35 million eager tourists, the country received 0. An almost unthinkable scenario one year ago.

But when you’ve invested $30 billion over an eight year period, it’s enormously hard to simply “let it go”, which is why unsurprisingly Japan now hopes to host some form of 2021 Olympics.

Already a debate is raging over the scale of the Olympics and who should be allowed in. Meanwhile enthusiasm for the Olympics in Japan has seemingly evaporated, fearful that it may lead to a wave of cases nationwide.

At the same time more people are becoming weary of the economic and socail impact, which is beginning to outweigh concerns for the virus.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/11/11/national/japan-suicide-rise-coronavirus/

The most likely scenario right now is Japan will re-open the country in stages, with neighbouring Asian countries such as China, South Korea and Taiwan given priority, along with Australia and New Zealand. These countries have seemed to have been spared the worst of the virus, so there’ll be less perceived risk in opening up to them.

There’s even a chance they may open up to this first group in early 2021 between February and April. A new report previously indicated the country wants to be prepared to handle tourists by January 2021.

If this goes well and the number of coronavirus cases doesn’t spike at all, the country will look to opening up to more riskier regions; unfortunately Europe and the Americas will likely be at the back of the queue given cases are considerably higher. Beyond May is the most realistic scenario.

A great deal of this is speculation, but of the articles I’ve read and the people I’ve spoken to indicate this is a likely scenario. If the Olympics weren’t part of the equation, maybe the country would delay longer, but in the run up to the event in 2021, Japan will need to start opening up if they hope to have any form of event at all.

For now folks, I’d say hold your fire for those of you looking to book a trip to Japan for the first half of 2021 and I’ll keep you up to speed on any developments over the coming weeks. Certainly between December and January, more answers will be coming!

And hopefully this time next year, fantastic hotels such as this will spring back to life and we can put 2020 behind us.

Chris