‘Swindled’: discount scheme to boost domestic Japanese tourism delivers twin blow to Tokyo as coronavirus infections rise in the city
- Japan’s plan to boost tourism has fallen flat in Tokyo after a spike of new coronavirus infections in the city
- Tokyo residents were removed from the scheme, and its tourist businesses hit with cancellations
Japan’s push to help revive its virus-ravaged economy with a “Go To” travel campaign has dealt a double blow to Tokyo, whose residents were cut off from promised travel subsidies and businesses are set to miss out on tourists.
Having staked its prospects for an economic recovery on demand, Japan, which has relied heavily on Chinese tourists in recent years, has gone further than most countries by encouraging domestic travel after an almost 100 per cent decline in foreign visitors during the pandemic. The resurgence of cases in major urban centres, however, highlights the challenges governments face as they try to balance rebuilding their economies with a constantly evolving health crisis.
Tokyo residents, who pay the biggest share of income tax of any Japanese region, are angry over not receiving travel subsidies and have raised questions about the legality of their exclusion. Businesses say cancellations have led to lost revenue and the government response is muddled.
Tokyo-based software engineer Takehito Fukui is caught in the mix. He booked a 300,000 yen (US$2,800) four-day holiday to Okinawa for his family last month after the campaign was announced, expecting at least a third of the trip to be subsidised.
“I honestly feel like I’ve been swindled,” Fukui said in an interview.
Following public criticism, Transport Minister Kazuyoshi Akaba said the government would pay for cancellation fees for trips to and from Tokyo booked between July 10 and July 17.
But the troubles with the programme have been viewed by many as another misstep in Abe’s management of the virus, which many have seen as, at times, being slow and haphazard. About 60 per cent of respondents said they weren’t happy with the government’s virus response, a weekend survey by the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper and Social Survey Research Centre showed.
