Japan Is Now Accepting Travelers: So Why Aren’t Tourists Going Back This Year?

BY Barsha BhattacharyaAug 1, 2022

The travel scene in the world has not evolved since the Pandemic - people have now realized that countries around the world have their doors to tourists again in the absence of strict covid travel guidelines. In fact, the summer of 2022 has witnessed so many stories about overcrowding, travel mishaps, and even dangerous heat waves at major tourist destinations across the world, especially in Europe.However, things in Asia have been a little different. As Asian countries are taking more time to open their doors to tourists with far lesser reports of flight cancellations or lost luggage, it has been seen tourists are not really coming back. One of the biggest examples of this strange travel phenomenon is Japan.Japan Is Open To Tourists Now: So Why Aren’t They Coming Back?Japan opened its doors to tourists in the summer of 2022 to a whole lot of fanfare, and that too at a time which is generally considered to be peak tourist time for travellers in this country. However, according to the Japanese Immigration Services Agency, only a meagre 1,500 tourists visited the country between June 10th and July 10th.The data points out how the numbers have gone down by a solid 95% as compared to data obtained during the same period of time before the Pandemic. Perhaps one of the possible reasons for the sharp decrease in tourists is because the country is only allowing leisure tourists and those too tourists who visit with ‘organized groups’ and not individually.Melissa Musiker, a PR professional based in New York City, commented in this context, “We don't need to be babysat” - Melissa used to be one of the frequent travellers to Japan before the Pandemic.So is Japan ruining its tourism industry because of its own rules, or is it because of some other strange reason nobody is aware of yet? Only time will tell us - till then, we can only speculate.Read Also:9 Things Every Traveler Should Know When Visiting Shanghai10 Best Places To Travel In November – Travel Guide 2022Top 5 Used Japanese Vehicles In Australia