As Japan opens its doors to visitors this week after more than two years of pandemic lockdown, hopes for a tourism boom face headwinds amid shuttered shops and a shortage of hospitality workers.
From Tuesday, Japan will restore visa-free travel to dozens of countries, ending some of the strictest border controls in the world to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is counting on tourism to help boost the economy and reap some of the benefits from the yen’s plunge to a 24-year low.
Arata Sawa is among those eager for the return of foreign tourists, who previously made up 90% of guests at his traditional guesthouse.
“I hope and predict that many foreigners will come to Japan, just like before COVID,” said Sawa, the third-generation owner of Tokyo’s Sawanoya ryokan.
Just over half a million visitors have come to Japan so far in 2022, compared with a record 31.8 million in 2019. The government had a target of 40 million in 2020, in time for the Summer Olympics, until both were overturned by the coronavirus.
Kishida said last week that the government is aiming to attract 5 trillion yen ($34.5 billion) in annual tourism spending. But that goal may be too ambitious for a sector that has atrophied during the pandemic. Hotel employment fell by 22% between 2019 and 2021, according to government data.
Spending by overseas visitors will reach just 2.1 trillion yen by 2023 and will not surpass pre-COVID levels until 2025, Nomura Research Institute economist Takahide Kiuchi wrote in a report.
Japan Airlines Co 9201.T has seen inbound bookings triple since the border easing announcement, President Yuji Akasaka said last week, according to the Nikkei newspaper. However, demand for international travel will not fully recover until 2025, he added.
Ghost town
Narita Airport, Japan’s largest international airport, about 70 kilometers from Tokyo, remains eerily quiet, with about half of its 260 shops and restaurants closed.
“It’s like half a ghost town,” said 70-year-old Maria Satherley from New Zealand, gesturing to the departure area of Terminal 1.
Satherley, whose son lives on the northern island of Hokkaido, said she would like to return with her granddaughter this winter but probably won’t because the child is too young to be vaccinated, a prerequisite for tourists who enter Japan.
“We’ll just wait until next year,” she said.
Amina Collection Co has closed its three souvenir shops in Narita and is unlikely to reopen them until next spring, president Sawato Shindo said.
The company reallocated staff and supplies from the airport to other locations in its chain of 120 stores around Japan as it refocused on domestic tourism during the pandemic.
“I don’t think there will be a sudden return to the pre-pandemic situation,” Shindo said. “The restrictions are still quite strict compared to other countries.”
Japan still strongly encourages people to wear masks indoors and refrain from speaking loudly. The cabinet on Friday approved changing hotel regulations so they can turn away guests who do not comply with infection controls during an outbreak.
Many service workers found better working conditions and wages in other fields over the past two years, so luring them may be difficult, said a consultant for tourism companies who asked not to be identified.
“The hospitality industry is very notorious for low wages, so if the government values tourism as a major industry, maybe financial support or subsidies are needed,” he added.
The Japanese government is launching this month a domestic travel initiative offering discounts on transportation and accommodation, similar to its Go To Travel campaign in 2020, which was discontinued after a surge in COVID infections.
Tight labor market
Almost 73% of hotels nationwide said they were short of regular workers in August, up from about 27% a year earlier, according to market research firm Teikoku Databank.
In Kawaguchiko, a lakeside town at the foot of Mount Fuji, guesthouses struggled to staff before the pandemic amid Japan’s tight labor market, and they anticipate a similar setback now, said a trade group employee who asked not to be identified.
That sentiment was echoed by Akihisa Inaba, general manager at the Yokikan hot spring resort in Shizuoka, central Japan, who said short staffing during the summer meant workers forgoing time off.
“Obviously, the labor shortage will become more pronounced when domestic travel returns,” Inaba said. “So I’m not so sure we can be happy.”
Whether overseas visitors wear face masks and observe other common infection controls in Japan is another concern. Strict border controls were widely known throughout most of the pandemic, and fears remain of the emergence of new viral variants.
“Since the start of the pandemic until now, we have only had a few foreign guests,” said Tokyo innkeeper Sawa. “Almost everyone wore masks, but I’m really not sure if people visiting from here on out will do the same.”
“My plan is to ask them to wear a mask while inside the building,” he added.
(REUTERS)
