Eager to admire colourful foliage, eat sushi and go shopping, droves of tourists from abroad began arriving in Japan on Tuesday, with the end of pandemic-fighting border restrictions that had been in place for more than two years.
"We got the news that we can finally come. We are really, really happy," said Nadine Lackmann, a German who was among the crowd of tourists arriving at Tokyo's Haneda airport.Travellers like Lackmann are expected to deliver a sorely needed 5 trillion yen boost to the world's third-largest economy. And the flood of visitors is expected to keep growing.
"As cliched as it sounds, just being back in Japan after all this time is what I am most looking forward to. That of course includes hopefully meeting new people, eating the food that I've missed like good tonkatsu, being in nature at that time of the year, riding the trains," he said. The only protocols left for entry are that you must be fully vaccinated with one booster or have a negative PCR test within 72 hours of departure. Virtually all visitors from the U.S., the rest of Asia, Europe and South America who fulfill those requirements won't have to quarantine.
But bookings from abroad with Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways Co., or ANA, have already jumped five-fold compared to last week, while bookings of flights out of Japan have doubled. With declining nervousness about the risks of infections, Japanese also are travelling more -- encouraged by discounts offered by airlines, bullet trains, "onsen" hot springs resorts and hotels to jumpstart the ailing travel industry.
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